Putting musicals
on the map

>> Actress Stephanie Pitsiladis wants to
bring a bit of Broadway to Montreal

IN CABARET’S CORNER: Pitsiladis

by AMY BARRATT

In five years, Stephanie Pitsiladis hopes to be able to say she has worked on Broadway. In the meantime, however, the Laval native is happy to be bringing a little Broadway to the Montreal area.

For anyone who has heard her belt out a song from Hairspray or Wicked, dreams of the Great White Way seem absolutely appropriate. Pitsiladis has more vocal power and stage presence than you’d think possible packed into her diminutive (4’11”) frame. Indeed, at age 24, she has already had brushes with the big time. In 2004, while in her final year of the professional theatre program at John Abbott College, she went to an open call audition for the Toronto production of Hairspray.

“I guess they liked me,” says Pitsiladis, “because they asked me to audition again in Toronto. After the Toronto audition, I called my teacher at Abbott and told him, ‘They want to fly me to New York to see the producers there.’ He said, ‘They must really like you.’”

In the end, she was cast as understudy to the lead (Tracy) in the Toronto production. She stayed on to do several other shows including Grease. More recently, she travelled to the Big Apple to compete in Broadway Idol, an initiative of the New York Musical Theatre Festival. She finished fifth, and made a few contacts along the way.

Despite these successes, Pitsiladis has chosen to return to Montreal, even though no one could describe this city as a musical theatre hotbed—at least not yet. Pitsiladis believes Montreal can put itself on the map, and she wants to play a part in that.

Since September, she has been teaching in the newly established theatre concentration program at her alma mater, Laval Liberty High School. Late last year, she directed her students in a lavish original show, Magic Touch: A Tale Inspired by Edward Scissorhands.

She is also working closely with the Centre for Education and Theatre in Montreal and hopes to be part of an ambitious project they have planned for late this summer: The Next Wave Festival of New Musicals.

For now, “I hope I can stay close to my large, supportive, extended family,” she says. “Sixty people drove in to Toronto to see me in Hairspray. Next time, I hope they won’t have to go that far.”