Plays about London that are developed in London are coming to the Grand Theatre.
Dennis Garnhum, the Grand's new artistic director unveiled on Tuesday COMPASS, a new play development program that will bring three local stories and one national story to life on the theatre's stage.
"I come from Theatre Calgary, where I was for over a decade. That's where I developed a real thirst for new play development. That is where I saw how you can ignite a theatre company by telling the stories," said Garnhum. "London has so many stories, this is just the tip of the iceberg of the stories we are going to tell."
Among the local stories set to be told over the next five years is one about London-born big band leader Guy Lombardo and the night he is most known for - New Year's Eve. The musical celebration of Lombardo will premiere in spring 2019. "Ambrose Small", a play about the Canadian theatre tycoon who is believed to be haunting the Grand, will mark the theatre's 50th anniversary in the fall of 2020.
The lone national story being commissioned, "Starlight Tours", is a musical drama surrounding police in Saskatoon who picked up First Nations people, drove them outside the city limits, and abandoned them in the dead of winter.
Garnhum believes the newly commissioned plays will drive Londoners to the Grand.
"Here's the beauty of new plays, first: fear - 'I don't know it, I'm not going to like it.' Second: 'oh, this is kind of interesting.' Third: 'I relate to this, this is about my world.' Fourth: standing ovation - 'this is thrilling, exciting, thank you for telling our story,'" said Garnhum. "That is what we are going to find. It is going to take a few years to develop that loyalty but I've seen it and I'm excited to see people transform with us."
A fifth play, "Silence", commissioned by Theatre Calgary, will have its world premiere in London on January 2018. The play is a love story about telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell and his deaf wife Mabel.
Tourism London will invest $75,000 over the next five years to help cover the massive $5-million cost to develop the new plays.
"The plays that we are investing in have the potential of drawing visitations into the city with the broader range of the region, the province, and potentially the country," said John Winston, general manager of Tourism London. "If that can raise the profile of the city and increase revenues for the Grand, and also establish London as a culture and entertainment destination in terms of live theater, I think it's a worthy investment and one that we should applaud."