Peter Mansell’s new musical, One Step Forward, will make its debut performance in St. Jacobs next month, tackling sexism in the 1950s and the songs of that generation.
![Jane Koehler, Mary Ducklow, Susan Mitchell, Dian Naish and Nancy Croth practice their roles as the sisters and cousins who must clean out their dead mother’s house in K-W Silver Star’s new musical, One Step Forward. Below, Donna Kuehl sings as one of the memory singers.[Whitney Neilson / The Observer]](https://www.observerxtra.com/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/post_arts_onestepforward.jpg)
Mansell wrote the play for the K-W Silver Stars, a local seniors’ community theatre that performs productions specifically for actors who are 60 or older. He said the inspiration for the production came when music director Heather Morris suggested he write something involving ’50s music.
“I noticed fabulous music, great tunes, Peggy Lee and Dinah Shore and all those kinds of people,” Mansell said. “The lyrics are all about women who are just knuckling under to what men want and I thought ‘oh my goodness this is incredibly sexist stuff.’”
From there he started researching the ’50s and discovered that was a time during the Second World War when women were in charge of all sorts of things, like factories, driving trucks, and managing offices. But after the war they were given a baby bonus and were basically told to go back to the kitchen.
“I thought this is also incredibly sexist,” Mansell said. “So now I had a reason to write the play. The first draft was serious and we’re at draft number eight now that has a lot more comedy in it.”
The story revolves around three sisters and two cousins who are sorting through their mother’s house after she’s died. Also on stage are the mother in heaven and her sister who died the year before. On the other side of the stage, whenever one of the five girls put a record on the record player, that song gets performed by another actor in costume from the ’50s.
“There are very few roles for women in their 70s and 80s, so they come to us and they have all sorts of roles in a company like this because it’s specifically for seniors,” Mansell said. “It’s a community group that’s dedicated not to produce a professional show. We’re here to have fun with theatre.”
Some of the classics they’ll be performing include Que Sera Sera, Secret Love, That Old Black Magic, Tennessee Waltz, and Dear Hearts and Gentle People.
He said they’ve put together a typical Silver Stars show where a lot of their seniors can play different roles and sing songs. He said their main challenge is getting the actors to learn their lines, and the music seems to be coming easier.
“The music told them it was okay, the government told them it was okay, the advertising … It was just this giant cultural movement to move these women back into the home.”
Having retired from his job as a drama teacher at Waterloo’s Bluevale Collegiate Institute, he said it only made sense to focus on playwriting.
Mansell started writing the play last summer and rehearsals started this fall, after some script work over the summer months.
“They can expect the takeaway to be thinking about how women in the ’50s were actually treated after the war. We’ve got little moments where we dealt with it seriously and we’ve got moments where we dealt with it comically,” Mansell said.
“It was an amazing part of North American history where women all of a sudden were in the workforce during the war and then in huge bunches came out of the workforce and became wives and mothers.”
One Step Forward will run Nov. 7 (8 p.m.), Nov. 8 (2:30 p.m.) and Nov. 9 (2:30 p.m.) at the Woolwich Community Centre, 29 Parkside Dr. in St. Jacobs. Tickets are $18 and can be purchased at the Kitchener Downtown Community Centre or by calling 519-888-7497.
