Studio 58 to April 19, 2026
Tickets from $23 (student with ID $10) at www.studio58.ca
Posted March 30, 2026
There are students and then there are Studio 58 theatre students: bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, just giving all they’ve got – which is a whole lot of bursting-at-the-seams, pulling-out- all-the-stops energy. And what better musical to make use of all that energy – and young talent – than Something Rotten! – a spoof on Hamlet.
John O’Farrell and Karey Kirkpatrick (book) and Wayne and Karey Kirkpatrick (music and lyrics) set the story in 1595 with brothers Nick and Nigel Bottom struggling against all odds to compete with Shakespeare, the cocksure darling of London’s Elizabethan theatre scene. When Nick discovers that Shakespeare’s troupe is rehearsing Richard II – the same play the Bottom brothers are rehearsing – it looks like impending disaster. If they could just figure out what Shakespeare’s next play is and beat him to it, maybe they’ll stand a chance. Nick goes to soothsayer Thomas Nostradamus (nephew of the better-known Nostradamus) and discovers that Shakespeare’s next play – which will turn out to be his most famous play – is, uh, Omelette, and it will be a musical. What’s a musical? Sounds ridiculous to Nick but he’s got nothing to lose. Rehearsals for Omelette begin. And so does all the fun.
Something Rotting! starts with “Welcome to the Renaissance”, a full-company rowdy, raucous opener. War of the Roses, Holy Crusades and the Bubonic Plague were “so middle ages, so Charlemagne”, they sing. Now everything is new with “merry minstrels” who “stroll the streets of London/A-strumming their lutes” wearing “puffy pants and pointy leather boots.” Wonderful rhyming couplets abound, my favourite being “penis” and “genius.” And then there’s wordplay around a character called Toby, actually Shakespeare in disguise; I leave to your imagination what they make of that.
Nicol Spinola keeps almost two dozen performers dancing and boogying their butts off in a flurry of cotton frocks, aprons and caps, or trousers, floppy white shirts and waistcoats (Donnie Tejani, costume designer). All this singing and dancing happens in the midst of moveable flats depicting a Tudor village (Shizuka Kai, set designer). Lighting designer Jonathan Kim uses a lot of moving light, bathing the stage in warm, peachy tones – the Dark Ages are really, really gone.
Something Rotten! Is a fun show and for those who are really up on their musicals, they will find echoes of all sorts of other shows including Westside Story. At one point I thought they were actually going to send up Oklahoma!
With all those bright young stars on stage, it’s hard to highlight a few but Saidi Mader, as Nick’s long-suffering wife Bea, arguably has the best voice which she shows off in “Right Hand Man”. Joel Bakajika’s crazy-eyed soothsayer is a comic standout while Kobe Lim brings some sweet innocence to Nigel Bottom as does Payton Gowdar to love-interest Portia. Dylan McNulty (Nick Bottom) has a very strong presence and a powerful voice (“I Hate Shakespeare”) and Evan Andersen Sterns’ Shakespeare is a cocksure Bard. Dressed mostly in black leather with a large black codpiece coming at you, Sterns simply commands the stage especially in the petulant “It’s Hard to Be the Bard”. Poor Will.
And, yes, there’s tap dancing. Oh, yeah!
You just have to love Studio 58, now under the guidance of artistic director Paul Moniz de Sá. And Something Rotten! Is a great choice for spring when everything is, indeed, new again. Cherry blossoms. Daffodils. Robins and sparrows. Puppies and kittens.
Dean Paul Gibson, a graduate of Studio 58 himself, directs this show and his program notes are informative. “This process is athletic. Comedy at this level is cardiovascular. It requires stamina – vocal, physical and mental. It requires breath control, textual clarity, rhythmic accuracy and the ability to pivot from sincerity to absurdity without losing truth. That doesn’t happen by accident. It happens though repetition, discipline and focus”. What we see is fun, fun, fun – and these young performers are having the time of their lives – but it’s the result of a lot of hard work. Gibson continues. “On the surface, it’s outrageous, self-aware and hopefully, wonderfully funny.”
It IS wonderfully funny.
NB: Forty-ninth Avenue is a mess of construction. Entrance to the Langara parking lot is accessible only by travelling west to east on 49th. On the bright side, parking is inexpensive and once in the lot you can still park close to Studio 58 at the eastern end of the lot.