Never give up!

>>Degrassi: The Musical resurrects
the pregnancy, the acid casualty
and the Zit Remedy, all in time
for the big dance

GANG’S ALL HERE: Snake, Stephanie, Joey and Wheels

by SACHA JACKSON

“We’re not the best singers, we’re not the best dancers and we’re probably not the best actors,” says writer/director Eve Thomas. “It’s not just a musical about Degrassi Junior High, it’s what a musical would be like if it were put on by the original cast.”

If you were lucky enough to grow up in the ’80s with a TV, chances are you’ve seen Degrassi. Put it down to a lack of cable television or a perfect time slot (after school), it wasn’t so much about loving or hating it, the show seemed to exist beyond judgement—it just was.

Thomas, who grew up in Montreal West and went to Royal West High School, wrote Degrassi: The Musical for a couple of different reasons. “It’s something I wanted to see and I realized I wouldn’t see it unless I put it on myself,” she says. “I don’t remember what the origin was—it was something out of leftfield—but the first scene I imagined was with Stephanie Kaye.”

Kaye, for those unschooled in Degrassi history, was a goodie-goodie who dressed like every other middle-schooler until she hit grade eight and swapped her dowdy duds for something a little more skank. “That first image of her changing in the bathroom lent itself to a cabaret-style striptease set to an All That Jazz-inspired song,” Thomas says. “All the music is inspired by Broadway.”

Cramming the first three seasons of the show into 45 minutes was tough, “I did it all by memory,” Thomas says. “And it doesn’t make sense, chronologically, if you get the real fanboys in the audience. But all the big storylines are there… basically, the whole thing is a nostalgia trip. The story arch and all that stuff, I didn’t pay much attention too. It’s all leading up the big dance.”

Even much of the dialogue remains intact. “It’s all quasi-verbatim and I didn’t really put any jokes in it. Like the original show, it’s funniest when they’re playing it straight, like when they’re trying to make a serious point about teenage pregnancy.”

Also in true Degrassi form, none of the cast are professional actors, most haven’t been on stage since elementary school and none have been involved with Fringe before. Thomas even cast herself as Melanie, which was “probably a mistake” but seemed like the only logical choice. “I wear a night guard and I have a lisp when I wear it, and Melanie has braces and a lisp...so it’s actually really natural.”

The rest of the cast is rounded out by friends and friends of friends, Thomas’s partner, Brett Schaenfield, who also co-wrote the play, plays Mr. Raditch, the creative director from her day job’s involved, and though she insists everyone is great, there are a few standouts. “Daniel Francis Haber, who plays Joey Jeremiah—he was my first and only choice. And Wheels, who’s played by Heidi Craig, is a real standout. Occasionally, I’ll look over at her and see glimmers of Neil Hope.”

So what can audiences expect?

“I wouldn’t want to give people the wrong impression. It’s pretty much what you’d expect, except for the tap dance about getting molested.”

DEGRASSI: The Musical, opens
Friday, June 13 at 6 p.m. at Venue 5
Studio Juste Pour Rire (2111 St-Laurent)