Markham
July 10, 2008 08:22 PM
By: Yentl Lieuw
If you love Shakespeare and the original play, Hamlet, but wouldn’t mind a musical twist to it, then Something’s Rockin’ in Denmark directed and produced by Markham’s Cliff Jones is for you.
“The show is a rock opera based on Hamlet which was on Broadway in the ‘70s,” said Mr. Jones, who is also a Milliken Mills English and drama teacher. “We’re revising it because there is New York interest in it again.”
The show will be in Toronto on July 25 at 8 p.m. and July 26 at 2 and 8 p.m. playing at the Jane Mallett Theatre, St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts on 27 Front St.E.
Drama was not always Mr. Jones’ passion. “I didn’t go to school for drama, I had a master’s degree in psychology,” Mr. Jones, 65, said. “When I was pursuing my PhD at Queen’s University, I decided I didn’t want to do it and quit.
“I came to Toronto, hung around the CBC until someone gave me a script writing job.”
The show started in 1974 as Kronborg: 1582, as a CBC radio special. Mr. Jones wrote the lyrics and the script.
The show then toured Ontario and it played at the Charlottetown Festival in P.E.I.
Mr. Jones switched careers in 1992. He had already been in TV and theatre for 25 years.
“I wrote scripts, musical numbers, produced and directed and worked with Martin Short and Mary Tyler Moore in the States.”
Mr. Jones explained Something’s Rockin’ in Denmark taught him to always stick with what you created.
“The show was very successful in Canada in the O’Keefe centre but when the show was brought to New York I changed the script to the way the broadway legend at the time, Gower Champion, wanted it.”
The show lasted six weeks in New York,
“When the show was brought to Los Angeles, I changed it back to the way I had it in Canada and it lasted one year and six months there,” Mr. Jones, a resident of Markham for 12 years, said. “And it also won seven theatre awards in L.A.”
Mr. Jones believes one of the reasons for the success of the show is that it remains true to Shakespeare’s basic plot.
“I was very surprised when it got tremendous reviews in the newspaper as well the Variety newspaper in New York,” Mr. Jones said. “They saw the Canadian production gave it a great review, and it attracted people from New York to P.E.I to see it.”
He loves the theatre, TV and teaching high school.
“I will be doing all of it until the day I die,” Mr. Jones said. “I fit everything in my schedule because it’s amazing, when you do what you love you just manage to pack it in.”
“I hope the audience will be humming some of the tunes from the show and just saying they had a great time walking out of the theatre,” he said.
Tickets are $30 and $40 at
www.stlc.com or call 416-366-7723 or 1-800-708-6754.