Warmth and Whimsy: Amélie the Musical comes to Montréal
By Misha Nye
February 12, 2025
Picture this: it is a grey Thursday in February and, despite your best efforts, you are feeling a bit low. You are sick of the winter sludge and the spring sun still feels an age away. What’s more, it is a Thursday. Who has anything to do on a Thursday in the depths of February? But then you remember that you’re on your way to MainLine Theatre. In fact, you can just about see the tangle of bikes outside Segal’s that means you’re getting near. You walk up the stairs, settle in your rickety seat, and look at the program. It's Amélie the Musical. The lights go down and, all of a sudden, all snow melts from view.
Promotional photo for Amélie.
Amélie, the well-loved film from 2001, initially had a rocky start to life as a musical. It opened on Broadway to a lukewarm response, and it wasn’t until the West End revamp that it clicked. But it was here that the charming, zany, whimsical world of Amélie Poulain really came to life. And now, thanks to Penumbra Theatre, it is coming to Montréal.
Amélie is a shy, eccentric waitress living in Montmartre, Paris. Upon finding a box of trinkets hidden in her floorboards, Amélie seeks its owner and thus embarks on an adventure alongside madcap neighbours and quirky dreamers. A tale of connection and our tethered lives, this show makes you see the power in every small action you take.
The cast of Amélie in rehearsal.
‘I was smitten’. This was the immediate response of director Adrian Saldanha upon hearing the soundtrack. Adrian forms one half of Penumbra Theatre alongside producer Aly Slominski. Amélie the Musical will be their first show since Be More Chill, which gained 8 nominations at the META awards. Anticipation has been building, and there is no one more excited than Adrian. We sat down for a chat during the Christmas break, when Adrian was itching to get back into the rehearsal room. When people say joy is infectious, I think this is what they mean.
For those wanting a sterile transplant of the film, pixie cut and all, you may want to look elsewhere. Adrian was adamant that this is a fresh new take, embracing rather than shunning the quirks of the cast and of our city. That said, at its core Amélie the Musical is, and will always be, a tale of our shared humanity:
‘A show about connection and the invisible tethers keeping people together’.
The cast of Amélie.
This is truly an ensemble piece. Cat Preston takes on the role of Amélie, with a cast and crew jam-packed with talent. Among others, this includes choreographer Caeleigh McDonald and music director Eric Elliot-Lee, who reunite after their work on Be More Chill. It was touching to see the pride and the respect that Adrian has for each member of the team, where everyone has the responsibility to shape the destiny of the show.
‘This show has been a puzzle with a lot of people trying to solve it’
‘Collaboration’ can often seem like a buzzword - useful for a grant application, but sometimes a flimsy idea rather than a practice. But during our chat, I realised this was different. It was fascinating to speak about collaboration as a problem solver, as technique. For example, the question of Amélie’s mother, in this production played by Cassie Muise. Largely a clichéd angry mom in the original, they collectively chose a more sympathetic angle, lending Amélie’s solo wanderings a new tragic valence. This speaks to Adrian’s refreshing directorial style: ‘To encourage the actors to tell the story they want to tell … to guide them to the best version of those tellings’.
This is collaboration as dramaturgy, not only as ideology, where disagreement means something interesting is going on. It is theatre-making as discovery, with everyone on the journey together.
The cast of Amélie in rehearsal.
‘Everyone got their hands into the making of this pie’.
What about the ‘non-dit’- a show set in France, yet shown in Québec. When I asked Adrian this, he looked thoughtful. ‘We’re just trying to tell this beautiful story about loss and connection’, he replied. And that’s the simple truth. Amélie is a show about what brings us together. It teaches us to unlearn the individualism and isolation that is drilled into us from an early age. This is a message with particular valence for the divide between Anglo and Franco arts in the city, one that Adrian hopes to bridge with this show.
February can be a lonely month: the dark before the dawn. Amélie the Musical is a beautiful, warming show and a welcome tonic for these times. At moments like this, we can all do with a reminder of our shared connection. So cast your mind ahead to February 20th. The lights go up. You leave the theatre, maybe sharing a smile with a stranger as you leave. The cold returns, but the warmth and whimsy of Amélie linger on.
‘Amélie the Musical’, presented by Penumbra Theatre, runs from the 20th February – 1st March at MainLine Theatre.
Amélie The Musical
By Penumbra Theatre
February 20 - March 1, 2025
At Mainline Theatre