Originally scheduled to play a limited engagement through May 28, the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical will now run through June 18.
Pitre is seen in the Song portion of the musical, which concerns the adventures of an English woman in America. The Dance portion features the talents of Evelyn Hart and Piotr Stanczyk; the latter replaced an injured Rex Harrington. Trudy Moffat directs with musical direction by Peter Aylin and choreography by Wayne Sleep, who starred in the original London staging of Song & Dance. The dance ensemble also features Jessica Dawson, Ryan Foley, Julia Juhas, Mikeal Knight, Kimberly O'Neil and Eric Robertson.
Song & Dance features a first act told entirely in song ("Tell Me On a Sunday," with music by Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Don Black) and a second act told entirely with dance ("Variations," with music by Lloyd Webber). The song cycle was originally penned for British musical theatre actress Marti Webb in 1979. Written for recording and a BBC-TV television special, Tell Me On a Sunday became the first-half of Song & Dance, which was mounted at London's Palace Theatre in 1982. Webb starred in the original London cast (Wayne Sleep danced the second half of the evening), and Bernadette Peters — who scored a Tony Award for her performance — starred in the Broadway version, which featured revised lyrics by Richard Maltby, Jr.
For her performance as Donna in the Canadian, Broadway and touring companies of Mamma Mia!, Louise Pitre received the Dora Mavor Moore Award, the San Francisco Critics Circle Award, the U.S. National Broadway Award as well as a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Musical. Her numerous theatrical credits include roles in Annie Get Your Gun; Piaf; Les Misérables; The World Goes 'Round; I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change; Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living In Paris and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Pitre’s solo recordings are titled "Songs My Mother Taught Me" and "All of My Life Has Led to This." Pitre was also involved in the world-premiere production of the late Cy Coleman's The Great Ostrovsky.
The Danforth Music Hall is located in Toronto at 147 Danforth Avenue. For tickets call (416) 872-1111. Visit www.songanddancetoronto.ca for more information.
