Essence:
Musical about the most famous Black community in Canada - Halifax’s Africville. Tracking a
close-knit family and close-knit community through the most important decades in Black culture
- the 1950s and 1960s to its diaspora. A universal story about people facing hard times with
humour and humanity. A sort of Black “Fiddler on the Roof”.
A musical - 18-20 songs / 4 production numbers / 18-20 cast / 3 tech / 4-5 musicians (see
more in budget). Start in Halifax or Toronto or Montreal. Goal: Broadway / London’s West End
/ global
Super Project 2
This project has had the second greatest response. Timing for a new, big Black musical
has never been better.
Africville was a unique ethnic, rural community in the largest urban city in Atlantic Canada.
The musical dramatizes and stage-pictures its life and death.
Multi-layered: a musical comedy with much drama and dance; a social/cultural treatise on
Black culture in the mid-twentieth century; a musical journey; above all / first things first
- entertainment art with broad appeal. But underneath it all - education, a history lesson,
Black Canadiana.
Material / What potential for story...
Fundamentally, the story of Africville is great material – it’s a great story, inherent with
drama and musicality. From the post-World War II Black determination for change to the final
bulldozing of the last house in Africville - January 2, 1970. Black and white friction to
Black and Black friction between West Indians and Nova Scotians and the religious versus the
secular. The coming of TV, the civil rights movement in the 50s to the Black power movement
(the Black Panthers coming to Halifax and Africville in 1968) in the 1960s. From “coloured
people” to Negroes to Black people to Afro-Canadians. A musical journey from the ‘50s jazz
and doo-wop and rock and roll to the ‘60s Motown and rhythm and blues. ... Potential for
music, comedy, history, education.
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