Vancouver stage musical Meadows of Stone marks Remembrance Day with WWI story
A small-cast musical about a nurse searching France for her missing brother runs Nov. 3 to 7 in Vancouver and Burnaby.
The day's top stories, food & events — every morning at 7. Unsubscribe anytime.
A new Canadian musical about the First World War is playing in Vancouver this week, timed for Remembrance Day.
Meadows of Stone runs at the Firehall Arts Centre from November 3 to 6, then moves to Burnaby's Shadbolt Centre for the Arts on November 7. The piece is written by Amy Lee Newman, a local stage performer, with music and lyrics by Jim Hodgkinson, and is directed by Larisse Campbell.
The story is inspired by true events. It follows an older Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse who travels to France looking for her missing-in-action brother, and a bandmaster who promises to help her. The two bond over an old piano in the back of a canteen, sharing grief over what the source calls a futile war and finding hope and connection through music.
The cast is small: Newman, Brendan Bailey and Hodgkinson. The creators say the work draws on research into the families who searched for their fallen sons and brothers, and into the unpaid work of the VADs, who had little preparation for the horrors of First World War hospitals, including the real No. 2 General Hospital in Le Havre.
