BWW Interviews: Showtunes, Smash and Edinburgh Fringe with Michael Hughes

Michael Hughes’s one man show ‘Mickey & Judy’ was a smash hit at last year’s Toronto Fringe Festival – selling out its run and winning a Best of Fringe Award. Based loosely on his own childhood experience, the show chronicles Hughes’s obsession with musicals. The show was conceived out of a childhood spent channeling Judy Garland, and includes actual excerpts from the chart’s of doctors Hughes saw while in a psychiatric ward.

After thrilling audiences this summer, Mickey & Judy gets its European premiere later this year at the world famous Edinburgh Festival. To celebrate and raise funds for the journey, Hughes is back for one night only at The Toronto Centre for the Arts. BWW spoke with him about the journey to Edinburgh, the success of the show and his love of all things musical theatre:

When you first started this journey, did you ever dream it would take you to Edinburgh?

Oh man! When I first started this project the only thing I was dreaming about was surviving the Toronto Fringe run.

But once we were a success, I decided to take a page out of Mickey & Judy and dream as big as possible, and that led me to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. It’s the largest theatre festival in the world - you can’t get much bigger than that.

What was the first thing you did when you found out you had been accepted to the Edinburgh Fringe? Who was the first person you told?

I told my parents, my younger sister and SharRon Matthews right away. They had all been helping me figure out the logistics of how I was going to be able to do this and Sharron was instrumental in helping me get booked. Her endorsement of Mickey & Judy saved me months of work.

The show was a smash-hit at The Toronto Fringe. What do you think helped it have such universal appeal? Could it be that we all just really love showtunes?

It very well could be that we all just really love showtunes!

It’s really hard for me to try and pinpoint why the show had such a universal appeal.

American photographer Diane Arbus said “The more specific you are, the more general it’ll be”. And I think that might have been the case with Mickey & Judy. I wrote my story and tried to be as specific and honest as possible and it seems people were able to identify with it.

And while the story is specific the themes are universal. Everyone has a dream. Everyone has felt like an outsider. Everyone has felt heartbreak. And (fingers crossed) everyone really loves showtunes!

You have a fundraiser coming up on the 21st- have you tweaked the show at all since its Fringe run? Will there be any surprises for those who come out to support the show?

In the year since Mickey & Judy premiered at the Toronto Fringe Festival, I have learned a lot. I attended the International Cabaret Conference at Yale University, studied Stand-Up Comedy at the Second City, and Le Jeu and Clown with Philippe Gaulier of L’ecole Phlippe Gaulier in Paris, France. I know all those classes and experiences will have an impact on my performance and writing. And I am excited to get onstage with the show and see how things will change.

Are you making any changes for the NYC and Edinburgh audiences?

I am going to have to do some research to make sure that I am not using too many Canadian phrases that might be confusing to Edinburgh audiences. But I think they can probably handle it (eh?).

For anyone who still doesn't know about the show, could you give us a Coles notes version of what to expect?

Mickey & Judy is a musical-memoir, chronicling my childhood obsession with musicals and my journey from the psychiatric ward to Off-Broadway. Chock-full of comical anecdotes about my childhood spent channeling Judy Garland, dramatic readings from my childhood psychologist’s charts, and a musical score that borrows from Broadway classics and the Judy Garland songbook.

What shows are currently on your iPod right now? What's been your best musical theatre discovery of 2012 so far?

Anything Goes (2011). I love Sutton Foster. Anything Goes was the best thing I saw on Broadway last year. I cried on the subway ride home.

Kelly Cameron's love affair with the theatre began when she was just five years old, on an outing to see the Original Canadian Cast of Les Miserables at the Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto. She instantly fell in love, and since then has been lucky enough to be involved in various theatre activities and productions, including a regional production of A Midsummer Night's Dream and a local production of Where the Sidewalk Ends. She has also received training from various teachers throughout Southwestern Ontario in both piano and voice, and competed in vocal competitions for which she received a few awards. Her writing career started almost by accident, when she had the opportunity to become a ghostwriter for up and coming businesses. She continues to do this, writing the content for all sorts of companies who are starting websites and looking to find their voice. Her passion and love for theatre led to her becoming involved with BroadwayWorld where she is thrilled to be writing for the Toronto contingent of the rapidly growing website. When she isn't at the theatre, you can generally find her firmly planted in front of her trusty Blackberry - tweeting, Facebooking or partaking in other such social media activities to ensure that those who want to know are kept apprised of everything that Toronto theatre has to offer. Other interests include movies, art, music, shopping, fashion and martial arts with the occasional foray into the world of finance. Follow Kelly on Twitter at @broadwaybabyto Creep her on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/Kelly-Cameron/500187141

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