barczablog

Rez Gas is a world premiere musical by Cale Crowe and Genevieve Adam running August 22nd to September 7th at the Capitol Theatre in Port Hope.

After moving away from his home reservation to pursue a music career, Destin stumbles back into town with unexpected car trouble and lands at the Wide Wigwam diner. There he finds many of those who he left behind and who want to remind him of his history and his place in the community. 

Rez Gas features Vinnie Alberto, Dillan Meighan-Chiblow and John Wamsley as a trio of old friends at the centre of the action.

The ensemble also features Michelle Bardach, Jonathan Fisher, Nicole Joy-Fraser, and Emma Rudy.

The piece is directed by Herbie Barnes. Orchestrations and Music Supervision by Jeff Newberry, with a band led by Music Director Sarah Richardson, and featuring Kia Rose, Emry Tupper, and David Schotzko. Click here for tickets & further information.

I had the chance to ask Cale Crowe a few questions.

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Barczablog: Are you more like your father or mother?

Cale Crowe: I used to think all I got from my Dad was his looks, but I’m older now than he was when he and my Mom had me and my sister and people in our family tell me I’m more like him than I realize.

BB: What is the best or worst thing about what you do?

Cale Crowe:The best thing about what I do is that I get to connect with people using expressions that touch on the unspoken parts of the human experience, be it through the songs I write or through a show like Rez Gas or possible future works. The worst part? That would be a toss-up between missing time with my son and having people at shows request songs I hate or have never heard.

BB: Who do you like to listen to or watch?

Cale Crowe:I appreciate any music project with a singer that lays themselves bare in their work – whether they’re expressing love, lust, loss, or loathing. Things that leave you feeling like you had a moment within yourself when the song ends. That can come from lyrics or from the physical elements of their voice and the care an artist takes in crafting their work.

In terms of watching, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to appreciate anything that can swing the full spectrum of emotion out of me – falling in love alongside the hero, hating the villain, mourning the losses along the way, or even just getting me laughing so hard I have to massage my cheeks from smiling too hard. This summer I made Shoresy my comfort watch – there’s a combination of character development and just how obnoxiously Ontarian that show is that tickles me. It’s full of surprise emotional moments; I never thought I’d tear up watching a losing team come back with five goals in the 3rd period or seeing a bunch of guys just hanging out and shooting the breeze until the early hours of the morning (all the while none of whom are wearing pants – if you know, you know).

BB: What ability or skill do you wish you had, that you don’t have?

Cale Crowe:Being present during the rehearsals for Rez Gas always makes me wish I had kept acting in the 10+ years since my last community theatre gig. Our cast is small, but every member is incredible and deserving of all the flowers, and above all, they make it look so fun. I know a lot of the skills needed to do what I do translate to acting, but I’m more than happy to watch the pros bring this story to life.

BB: When you’re just relaxing and not working, what is your favourite thing to do?

Cale Crowe:I’m big on solo time. After my son goes to bed, I’m often found rewatching shows and movies or playing single-player video games, or scrolling through TikTok or Instagram for longer than I care to admit.

BB: Who do you think of first, when I ask you to name the best singer?

Cale Crowe:It’s a frustrating answer, but I think the question has different answers for different reasons. I grew up at a time where people sang against their governments and didn’t think ahead far enough to consider the health of their vocal cords. Lately I’ve been in love with the (sometimes) metal band Sleep Token and their singer (known only as Vessel). I wish I could sing like that.

BB: What was your first experience of music?

Cale Crowe:Generally speaking, my parents played music all the time when my sister and I were kids – in the car, during house-cleaning blitzes, in the garage on a Sunday afternoon, anytime and anywhere. Music accompanies nearly every formative memory I have. My first-ever live concert was in 2003; Nickelback at the Peterborough Memorial Centre with Three Days Grace and The Trews.

BB: Who are your favourite artists, what are your influences ?

Cale Crowe:I spent my teen years on Billy Talent, Alexisonfire, The Used, My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, that sort of thing. In college, I got into a wider range of music that included (but wasn’t limited to) The Halluci Nation, G-Eazy, Ed Sheeran, and The Weeknd. Today, I’m influenced by anything that intersects between the risk of vulnerability and the risk of trying new things sonically.

BB: Is there a song that you identify with or admire that you’d suggest we listen to, as a way to understand you better?

Cale Crowe:I’m the type of person that will find a song and tack it to a feeling or emotion permanently. A more recent example is the song “Euclid” by Sleep Token; it’s not a happy song by any stretch of the imagination, but it makes me so happy to listen to. It’s full of swells and elements of chorus that make it anthemic and equally, simultaneously heart-breaking.

BB What’s your favourite song that you’ve ever created?

Cale Crowe:My personal favourite from my own collection is called “If You Let Me” – a pretty standard love song, maybe, but depending on my energy level at any given show it somehow ends up being played a little differently every time.

Here’s me performing it live back in 2022.

BB: Could you talk a bit about your development and how to see Rez Gas in context with your work?

Cale Crowe:Honestly, to this point, I view Rez Gas as being a pretty stark departure from my other works. It’s the first/only musical I’ve ever written, and in terms of deeper meaning it falls onto the more literal end of the spectrum; much like my work as a musical artist, the setting, characters, and plot are all loosely based on reality, but in my other works the veils of symbolism and metaphor are thicker. That being said, in terms of actually writing each piece of music for this show, much of that process was similar to how I’ve written my records in the past – using looping elements to give more focus to the words and story being told.

BB: Do land acknowledgments feel like a meaningful ritual to you? Do you have any ideas of what settler populations could do or should think about that might be helpful towards genuine reconciliation?

Cale Crowe:I think that proper land acknowledgements (like the one Rob Kempson has written for the Capitol Theatre) can carry significance, but there are many, many variables that can sway that meaning – on both the acknowledger’s and the audience’s parts. I don’t pretend I can even come close to having all the answers, but in the time I’ve had on Turtle Island to think about it, I have come to understand reconciliation as a practice rather than an outcome.

BB:  How do you feel about the way new works like Rez Gas are received and presented in Canada, especially in Ontario?

Cale Crowe:With Rez Gas specifically not yet being presented to the world (at the time of this interview), I can’t say for sure how it will ultimately be received. That said, I believe with my whole chest that the world of artistic expression needs all the Indigenous-made projects that can be made. Any culture on the planet is doomed if it isn’t given the space to grow, to evolve, to move forward. The Capitol Theatre has set a standard by facilitating this growth in even this small way.

BB: In August Capitol Theatre presents the world premiere of Rez Gas. The press release says “After moving away from his home reservation to pursue a music career, Destin stumbles back into town with unexpected car trouble and lands at the Wide Wigwam diner. There he finds many of those who he left behind and who want to remind him of his history and his place in the community. ” Please tell us more.

Cale Crowe:Rez Gas is a two-act story that provides a chance for audiences of various walks of life to see a bit of themselves on stage and, hopefully, it gives them pause to reflect on their choices, their relationships, and their communities.

Our entire show has lived its life (thus far) within the walls of the Capitol Theatre Port Hope. It was written by myself and Genevieve Adam during the 2023 Capitol Theatre Creator’s Unit and its world premiere will happen on the Capitol’s main stage. It’s truly been an incredible privilege to come in every day and watch the cast and crew breathe a third dimension into the words and sounds we’ve made.

BB I saw that the music of Rez Gas is described as “ a beautiful expression of Indigenous joy with a hip-hop-infused, unforgettable score. ” Please tell me more about what we should expect to hear.

Cale Crowe:During the making of our show, we made many a comparison to shows like Rent and Hamilton when looking at the music. Audiences can expect a blend of genres, from hip-hop to 90’s country and even ‘00’s rock. Influences ranged from Brooks & Dunn to Linkin Park to Cardi B.

BB: Can you share anything about the writing process or stories from backstage?

Cale Crowe:One thing I can say is that our show did quite literally spawn from the tiniest kernel of an idea – that being that an artist with next to no prior experience in the medium of theatre could conceive something that now has so many people behind it, both on stage and off. I had no idea that any of this would happen when I reluctantly agreed to humor Rob’s (then) impossible ask of including me in that Creator’s Unit, and yet here we all are.

BB: There’s a great quote I saw, where you say“Rez Gas is a labour of love that takes loose inspiration from my own upbringing on the Alderville First Nation territory; some audience members that come from back home may see some semblance of themselves and their home brought to life through our show through its setting, characters, and even costume choices.”

Please excuse me for again asking the obvious question: Is Rez Gas auto-biographical?

Cale Crowe: This is perhaps the most common question I’ve gotten – and mostly from prospective audiences! The long answer is that I wrote Rez Gas during a pretty big transitional period; I was a new parent, I had moved back to Alderville First Nation, I had entered my 30s in the late stages of a global pandemic, and being invited to write this project felt like just another example of how much of my life was in flux at the time. The setting for the show is loosely based on the local hangout of my youth, and the characters are inspired by my own personal relationships – sometimes individuals, sometimes amalgamations of people.

The short answer: Eh, maybe?

BB: I’d love to hear more about the creative process at the Capitol Theatre, the team & what you experienced.

Cale Crowe:A rule about success that I’ve come to understand intimately: in any room, always seek to be the least of any skill you have, and then get learning. Yes, I helped conceive the show at a skeletal level, but before I set foot in a rehearsal space and watched our director and actors’ creativity flow, I could never have imagined the colours and shapes that the show has been molded into so far. Even when I’m playing the role of wallflower, the team we’ve made has felt very much like a form of home these past weeks. The laughs are real, there are no bad ideas, and every single person in the room feels in their whole body that we’re making something that The Capitol Theatre’s audience will talk about long after this run is over. I’ve heard the words “This is only the beginning” several times since we started rehearsing.

BB: I interviewed Genevieve Adam recently about Heratio, her other new show that opens really close to where I live in Scarborough, not realizing wow she had a second one the same month, coming up in collaboration with you. Talk about what it was like working with her and the team to create this work.

Cale Crowe:Genevieve often describes her part of this process as “midwifing” the story. In truth, she was also often playing the role of soundboard, editor, therapist, and all the while wearing dozens of other hats that were required to get the ideas we had onto paper.

I hadn’t heard her name prior to Rob match-making us for this project, and in the time we’ve known each other she’s become someone I’ve relied on for support in so many ways.

Rez Gas came from my head, but the ideas came in the form of a swarm of feral butterflies that she did the work of catching in order to make into something more tangible.

Like everyone else thus far in making our show, Genevieve never once made me feel like I didn’t have good ideas or something important to say.

BB: I recently saw an opera called “Missing” about the girls & women who disappeared in BC on the highway of tears. That very serious subject had to be done as an opera.  Could you share something about the conversations between you & Genevieve about the genre, the tone & approach you were choosing for this show, and how the choice of a style would help you approach the topics in the play?

Cale Crowe:One of the first things I told Genevieve and Rob when we discussed making this project: no “trauma porn”. There is a time and a place for Indigenous voices to express the horrors that we as a people have experienced, and both are/should be plentiful, but my priority was to be a relief from that – specifically for Indigenous audiences. I didn’t want our show to be another example of reliving these atrocities; rather, I wanted it to demonstrate how many other sides of our people there can be. We’ve faced so much adversity, but we also laugh. We cry. We rage. We lust. And every now and then, we need a good smack (metaphorically) to remind us of what’s important, just like everyone else. And yes, our show does still touch on elements of adversity that Indigenous people face in modern times, but the goal for me was always that personal perspective rather than one that turns our stories into statistics.

BB:  In 2025 Canadian culture seems precarious. We hear “elbows up”.  I want to thank you and Capitol Theatre in Port Hope for doing your part, although we may sometimes forget the importance of local culture, employing local talent.

Cale Crowe:I can’t say for certain what the future holds when it comes to the arts and our cultural expressions, but if it takes turbulent times for us to remember how important these domestic works are, then now is certainly an example of that. Canadians – especially those of us who live closer to the border – often experience life second-hand from Americans, and nowhere is that more evident than in our media. The whole “elbows up” movement, complicated as it may be, is a great opportunity for the average Canadian to reflect on what gives us our identity – and what sets us apart from our neighbours. Rez Gas doesn’t serve to play a role in that, but all domestic artistic expression made now and in the years to come will be bricks in this house we make for ourselves as Canadians.

BB: Could you offer any advice to creatives wanting to make something for the stage?

Cale Crowe: There is no limit to the number of necessary drafts.

BB: do you have any upcoming gigs you want to mention after this?

Cale Crowe: I have a few that I can’t talk about just yet. I’ll say this: The day after our curtains fall for the last time is the day I pick up my music career again, and I plan to hit the ground running.

BB Do you have any influences / teachers you want to acknowledge

Cale Crowe:I want to give a special shout-out to Christine Stone, my high school Drama teacher. She’s the one who made me fall in love with the theatre way back in 2006 (almost 20 years ago!) and she was among the first people I was truly excited to tell when we confirmed we were mounting this show. Christine, if you’re reading this: I love you, I hope I make you proud, and I’m still sorry I never completed a single ISU assignment you gave in all my time as your student. When you see this show, I hope it makes up for that.

BB: I’m sure she will be proud of you!

Rez Gas is a world premiere musical by Cale Crowe and Genevieve Adam, directed by Herbie Barnes, music supervision by Jeff Newberry, running August 22nd – September 7th at the Capitol Theatre in Port Hope. Click here for tickets & further information.