The Musical Stage Company is thrilled to announce that the next Crescendo artist is Anton Lipovetsky.
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Launched in 2017, The Crescendo Series is a three-year residency for a Canadian composer with a commitment from The Musical Stage Company to premiere multiple works within the mainstage programming, a $30,000 bursary, dramaturgical support, and international advocacy and promotion. Two new musicals by The Crescendo Artist and their collaborators will premiere at The Musical Stage Company during his three-year residency.

Now a rolling program to ensure multiple artists can benefit from support and production of a body of work, an additional Crescendo Series writer will begin a Crescendo cycle within the next three-years

2020 – 2023 Crescendo Series Artist: Anton Lipovetsky
2017-2020 Crescendo Series Artist: Britta Johnson

Anton Lipovetsky

Anton Lipovetsky is a theatrical composer, lyricist, performer and educator based in Vancouver, Canada.

Anton participated in The Musical Stage Company’s inaugural LAUNCH PAD program where he collaborated with Steven Gallagher on Cygnus, a thirty-minute musical about the Northeast blackout of 2003. An expanded, full-length version commissioned by The Musical Stage Company retitled BLACKOUT will premiere at Canadian Stage in May of 2021. Also in 2021, Anton’s collaboration with playwright Dave Deveau called This Is It (a contemporary musical about violence and student activism in American high schools) will premiere in Nashville, Tennessee at the Nashville Children’s Theatre. Other musicals Anton has written music for include Elbow Room Café (ZeeZee Theatre), Best Laid Plans (Touchstone/Patrick Street), cool beans (Solo Collective), Broken Sex Doll (Virtual Stage/The Cultch) and FLOP! (Delinquent Theatre).

As an actor, Anton has performed across Canada including the National Arts Centre, the Luminato Festival, Banff Arts Centre, Arts Club Theatre, Caravan Farm Theatre, Belfry Theatre, and five seasons at Vancouver’s Shakespeare festival, Bard on the Beach. And in addition to acting and writing, Anton has worked as an educator, mentor or workshop facilitator with theatre artists of all ages through Studio 58, Bard Education, Carousel Theatre For Young People, Theatre Replacement, Lyrebird and Neworld Theatre’s Learning Ensemble Across Difference, an acting ensemble made up of neurotypical and neurodiverse performers.

Anton is the recipient of two Jessie Richards Awards, four Ovation awards and a Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award for Emerging Theatre Artist. He is a graduate of the Studio 58 Acting program and the Stratford Festival Birmingham Conservatory for Classical Theatre.

Britta Johnson

From 2017-2020, The Musical Stage Company will produce three new musicals – one each year – written by Britta Johnson.

Hailed by The Toronto Star as “a major talent,” Johnson is one of the most extraordinary voices in Canadian musical theatre. Her collaboration on the immersive musical Brantwood helped make it the must-see theatre event of 2015, winning the Audience Choice Dora Award. In 2016, she was nominated for two Dora Awards for Best New Musical – one for her original Jacob Two-Two score at Young People’s Theatre (with Anika Johnson), and one for The Musical Stage Company’s Reframed inspired by and performed in front of a painting at the Art Gallery of Ontario (with Sara Farb). Her musical Life After won the inaugural Paul O’Sullivan Prize for musical theatre, was the runner up for the 2015 Stage West Pechet Family Musical Award and was a Patron’s Pick in the 2016 Toronto Fringe Festival. Most recently Britta wrote music and lyrics for the 2017 Dora Award nominated Stupidhead!, was librettist for choreographer Robert Binet’s adaptation of “The Kreutzer Sonata” with Ballet Moscow, and created Trap Door, a collaboration with Anika Johnson and Morris Panych, produced by Theatre Sheridan in the fall of 2017.

Over three years, The Musical Stage Company will produce a body of Britta’s new works. The first production in the Crescendo Series was Life After, co-produced with Canadian Stage and Yonge Street Theatricals. The second production was Dr. Silver: A Celebration of Life co-written by Anika Johnson and co-produced with Outside the March. The third production will be Kelly V. Kelly, co-written by Sara Farb and produced in association with Canadian Stage.

Anton Lipovetsky

BLACKOUT

Book by Steven Gallagher, Music & Lyrics by Anton Lipovetsky
A Musical Stage Company Production, produced in association with Canadian Stage

I am absolutely thrilled to join The Musical Stage Company’s Crescendo Series. It is a rare opportunity for a Canadian musical theatre composer and one I am extremely grateful for. I am so looking forward to these three years of creating, developing, and continuing to collaborate with people who inspire me. Anton Lipovetsky

The Crescendo Series connected me with incredible mentors, stretched me to create a rich body of work, and helped my work to be launched and embraced across borders. I can’t wait to witness the impact Canadian musical theatre can make on a global scale because of The Musical Stage Company. Britta Johnson - Inaugural Crescendo Artist

The Crescendo Series

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