Punk rock musical road show storms the stage

The language is R rated. The music is in your face. But Michael Scholar Jr. insists that the story he is telling is as much a piece of Canadiana as beavers and lumberjacks.

The story is Hard Core Logo, based loosely on the life and times of the seminal 1970s vancouver punk band, D.O.A. “The term hardcore punk was born in vancouver,” Scholar points out. “The scene there was every bit as important to the invention of punk as London or New York. This is a slice of Canadian history.”

It’s a slice of Canadian history you won’t find in your high school history books. Based on the book by Michael Turner and the film by Bruce McDonald, Scholar’s stage adaptation, Hard Core Logo: LIVE, reflects the raw anarchic D.I.Y. energy of the punk scene.

“It’s a punk rock musical road show,” Scholar says. “It takes the audience on a mythological road trip with the band Hard Core Logo across Western Canada. In writing the script, I wanted to create the sense of an authentic trip, and also mirror the humour and the stresses that develop in that situation, kind of like a dysfunctional family on wheels.”

Scholar, along with director Brad Moss and members of the cast, spent a week at The Banff Centre this spring refining Hard Core Logo: LIVE’s production elements.

Scholar says he has been a fan of the story for some time. “I first saw the film at the Princess Theatre in Edmonton in 1995 or 96, and I was blown away by it. About a year later, I picked up the book secondhand at a sidewalk sale and I immediately fell in love with how Michael Turner tells the story.”

Turner’s book does not follow a traditional narrative. Instead it uses snippets of conversation, poetry, diary entries, black and white photos, lyrics, and performance contracts to recreate the band’s ill-fated reunion tour.

“It immediately struck me it was perfect for the theatre,” says Scholar. “When I picked it up again, a decade later, I was amazed no one had done a play with this material.” During that decade Scholar, and his vancouver-based company, November Theatre, had enjoyed international success with the touring production of Tom Waits’ The Black Rider, including award-winning runs in Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary, and vancouver.

“I was searching for another production and I realized this was it,” Scholar says.

Live music is central to the production and Scholar made a critical decision early on to ask D.O.A. founder Joey “Shithead” Keithley to create original music for Hard Core Logo: LIVE. “We also decided to play songs in their entirety, not segments like in the film,” Brad Moss points out. “We wanted this production to be true to the source material.”

Auditions for pre-production workshops began in late 2008 and immediately sparked interest from across the country. “It was like we threw down the gauntlet and people from across the country rushed to pick it up,” says Scholar. The play demands multiple skills – beyond acting, it also demands rock and roll chops. “If Joe got excited by someone auditioning, then we knew we had the right guy,” says Scholar.

Up until this spring, Scholar and Moss had concentrated on script and music development. When the chance came to mount a workshop at The Banff Centre through a B.C. Arts Council Performing Arts Production Residency, they jumped at it.

“We’ve been working through the multimedia elements, and the staging,” Moss says. “It’s very helpful to be in a real theatre space.”

“Being here in the mountains also allows the team to really gel,” he adds “Its not just what takes place in the theatre, but conversations afterwards, lots of ideas bubble up outside the eight-hour day. We are able to focus and accomplish a lot of work.”

“The Banff Centre provides the perfect opportunity to develop an innovative theatre piece like Hard Core Logo: LIVE,” says Stan Hamilton, vice chair of the B.C. Arts Council. “This is the third year the council has been working with the Centre, offering B.C.-based artists a unique opportunity to integrate and refine original productions.”

Hard Core Logo: LIVE will premiere this November at Edmonton’s Theatre Network, before moving on to Vancouver’s PuSh Festival in January 2011. Scholar and Moss hope the production will tour.

“We’d like to wave the vancouver punk flag around the world,” Scholar says.

Hard Core Logo: LIVE is a co-production between November Theatre, Theatre Network, and Touchstone Theatre in association with Rumble Productions. Adapted by Michael Scholar, Jr., original music by Joe “Shithead” Keithley of D.O.A, lyrics by Michael Turner. From the book by Michael Turner, the film by Bruce McDonald, and the screenplay by Noel S. Baker.

Composer Gavin Bryars’s new opera Marilyn, featuring Faroese singer Eivor and the Aventa New Music Ensemble, and showcased this June at the Centre, is also supported by a BC Arts Council Performing Arts Production Residency.