Toronto the Good A summer musical about Toronto in the 1890’s
	Artword Theatre 75 Portland Street, Toronto ON M5V 2M9		Tel: (416) 408-1146 Fax: (416) 408-0532 website: www.artword.net email: artword@artword.net

Concept

Toronto The Good is a light-hearted evocation of daily life in Toronto during the period from 1886 to 1895. The script is assembled out of newspaper articles, advertisements, pamphlets, books and songs of the period to give a fresh and authentic impression of what it was like to live in Victorian Toronto.
Toronto the Good is a snapshot of Toronto when it started to think of itself as a major urban centre. As gas lamps gave way to electricity, Toronto found itself a hotbed of activity: plays, opera, vaudeville, concerts, balls, Sunday excursions to Toronto Island, dudes "on the mash", women in bloomers pedalling bicycles in High Park, and others of doubtful repute strolling along Yonge street and in fancy houses downtown.
Toronto first became known as "Toronto the Good" after the election of Mayor Howland in 1886. With the support of the labour and temperance movements, he undertook to clean the city from vice and corruption. After a few years Toronto began to relax, but the reputation remained. In 1898, C.S. Clark published Of Toronto the Good, a witty and acerbic "social study" of the city in all its aspects. Our play uses a character loosely based on Clark as our guide, although only some of his lines are actually from the book.
In the first act, we see what was going on in everyday life. In the second act, we sample some of the music, theatre, vaudeville, and dancing of the time.
Toronto the Good is performed by five actors, assisted by a pianist. One male actor plays C.S. Clark, who sometimes participates in the action, but without losing his identity. Two men and two women, all excellent singers and dancers who can do justice to the beautiful four-part arrangement of some of the songs, share a multitude of other parts as required.
All songs are from 19^th century sheet music, and are in the public domain. We have avoided "old chestnuts" in favor of clever, topical songs that will be fresh to modern audiences. Many of the songs are from the Library of Congress archives, while others are from Temperance song books available today only in microfilm. From the Library of Congress archive as well, we have sampled some authentic vaudeville routines.
Our music director is Tom Baker, a composer/performer/conductor with extensive experience in all areas of music – jazz, classical, new music, and old time country. He was the Music Director of Second City in Toronto from 1977-1983.

 Licensing and Rights

The script of Toronto the Good is an original work written and owned by Ronald Weihs. Much of the content of the script is based on published sources from the 19^th century, all of which are now in the public domain. Songs are all from sheet music published in the 19^th century, and also in the public domain.