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If it’s Thursday then it must be choir practice.

The five women who make their way to church to rehearse for their small choir, Crescendo, all have their own reasons for making the time to gather and sing. There’s May (Kirstin Piehl), an autistic young adult who breathlessly recites science facts while attempting to learn how to socially interact with others. She’s the “keeper of the scarves,” and somewhat unbendable when it comes to schedules. Bobby (Colleen Tillotson) has always been a talented singer as well as devout church-goer, and she pulls the cynical non-believer Darla (Michelle Diaz), her roommate in rehab, along for the ride.

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The chipper Natalie (Jenny McKillop) has a house full of kids, and she often shows up slightly late, usually with the youngest in tow. Finally there’s Pat (Cathy Derkatch), the conductor and artistic director. A Juilliard prodigy in her younger days, Pat has high hopes for the community choir, berating them towards the success that she ran away after working so hard for it.

Pat is the pivot around which these characters swing, but she’s clearly more than the stereotypical conductor forcing her one-day-a-week singers to listen to new ideas gleaned from music conventions. She’s fiercely determined to get the best out of her choir, enough so that she misses the entire reason why it’s a community choir. Of course she has her own demons to contend with, a family relationship that greatly foreshadows the ending.

Playwright Sandy Paddick, a choir member herself, makes use of personal interviews to craft Crescendo!, the first ever musical in the long history of Shadow Theatre. With composer and pianist Jen McMillan she follows the choir as they squabble, empathise, learn and connect through music. Back stories are revealed, personal issues explored. Along the way Paddick interpolates quick vignettes of other choir singers, explaining why it is that they’re compelled to sing, and how it brings them so much joy.

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Which is the real beating heart of Crescendo! Sure, there’s a certain amount of comical inter-choir sniping, questions of art versus commerce, flashbacks and a very important festival appearance. But what’s really being asked is why we form communities, and especially why singing with others is such a basic human trait.

If you’re a choir member you’ll find a lot to laugh at, though the humour isn’t so niche that you’ll miss it if you’ve never sang Christmas carols in a shopping mall to disinterested patrons. The eclectic nature of any working choir gets a coy nudge in the ribs as Pat and her charges make their way through an assortment of songs written for the performance by McMillan or yanked directly from the standard choir playbook. Prepare yourself for a hilarious version of one of rock music’s most irritatingly treacy numbers, folks.

The end comes long so quickly that you feel as though you might have missed something in between, but that oddly works well with the constant era shifting as each character’s backstory is revealed. An exceptionally strong ensemble keeps you interested in the fragmented plot, with Tillotson in particular shining in a string of extra roles. Will you laugh, will you cry? Probably a bit of both, but you certainly won’t fail to be moved.

Crescendo!
Directed by: Kate Ryan
With Cathy Derkatch, Michelle Diaz, Jenny McKillop, Kirstin Piehl, Colleen Tillotson.
When: Until Nov. 5
Where: Varscona Theatre, 10329 83 Ave.
Tickets $25 and up, available in advance from shadowtheatre.org

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