Naughty...but Nice, Calgary's homegrown award-winning musical, returns to the stage
Scott Olynek and Joe Slabe at the piano in Naughty...but Nice: Nine Live! now playing at the studio theatre in C Space. (Photo courtesy Forte Musical Theatre)
An old-ish favourite is back on the Calgary stage after a two-year pandemic pause.
Naughty...but Nice: Nine Live!, the musical holiday revue that helped launch the career of Ahad Raza Mir, has returned to the stage for the first time since 2019 with a few new twists and turns and a new venue for a holiday run.
The new venue is the theatre inside cSPACE. There are three new cast members, seven new songs and new choreography from a team led by Forte Musical Theatre founder and artistic director Joe Slabe.
Now in its ninth edition, Naughty…but Nice is a holiday musical that both celebrates holiday gatherings and acknowledges that sometimes, all you want for Christmas is for everyone to go home.
It's full of witty, caustic odes to the season that pop a few sacred Christmas balloons such as "Santa's Your Daddy," and the much-loved "Bailey's for Breakfast."
L to R: Jamie Tognazzini, Scott Olynek and Katelyn Morishita in Naughty...but Nice: Nine Live!
AWARD WINNER
Naughty…but Nice has won numerous awards over the first eight years of its existence, including Rosies, a number of Betty Awards and a Calgary Critics Award in 2014 for a University of Calgary theatre student ((Ahad Raza Mir) who propelled his award for Best Actor in a Musical to a career starring in major television and film projects in Pakistan, and most recently, the Resident Evil series on Netflix.
It features songs penned by a collection of composers including Slabe and others from Toronto, New York and elsewhere.
That's a reflection of the success of Slabe's Forte Musical Theatre, the only western Canadian professional theatre dedicated exclusively to new musicals.
One of those, Crossing Swords, won five awards at the 2013 New York Musical Theatre festival.
This year's Naughty…but Nice: Nine Live! cast features Katelyn Morishita, Zach Colangelo, Jamie Tognazzini and Scott Olynek.
Shows are Tuesday through Saturday at 7:30 p.m. with matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. at the cSPACE Theatre, 1721 29 Avenue S.W. The final performance is a special weekend matinee on Friday, Dec. 23 at 2 p.m.
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