Review: INSIDE AMERICAN PIE

Live and in person at the CAA Theatre, Toronto, Ont. Mirvish Productions present the Harmony House production. Playing until March 30, 2025.

www.mirvish.com

Created by Mike Ross and Sarah Wilson

Music director and arranger, Mike Ross

Set by Lorenzo Savoini

Lighting by Simon Rossiter

Sound by Sergey Varlamov

Cast: Brielle Ansems

Greg Gale

Mike Ross

Alicia Toner

Kirk White

Creator/performer Mike Ross is a treasure. His production of INSIDE AMERICAN PIE is a gift to the audience.

Mike Ross is a musician, composer, arranger, producer and archaeologist. Along with Sarah Wilson they have created Inside American Pie, a deep dive into the mysteries and meanings of the song “American Pie” by Don McLean. Mike Ross calls the resulting presentation, a ‘docu-concert’. Mike Ross has been doing this kind of musical ‘archaeological’ work for his whole creative life. When he was the music supervisor at Soulpepper, for example,  he conceived of the idea of the Golden Record, that examined a record and its contents that was sent into space on the Voyager Spaceship. That docu-concert was astonishing. Mike Ross has continued this work with Inside American Pie.

Background. In 2020, Mike Ross and his wife Nicole Bellamy and their two children went home, to Prince Edward Island. They had been living in Toronto for years (he was working at Soulpepper) and they decided they would go home. It was the pandemic. For pure folly they bought a small music hall of 140 seats called Harmony House, in Hunter River. There they presented concerts. Inside American Pie was the first effort and it sold out over the three years it has been presented there. The Mirvishes found out about it and booked it for a winter stint in Toronto—Harmony House takes a break during the winter, so the timing for Toronto was perfect.

While Mike Ross is a great collaborator with his creative colleagues, one senses he is the driving force behind these docu-concerts.

In Inside American Pie Mike Ross and his co-creator Sarah Wilson delve into the eye-popping complexity of Don McLean’s song “American Pie” that references ‘the day the music died’, ‘good-old boys were drinking whiskey ‘n rye’, ‘drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry….’ to try and discover what it all means.

Mike Ross has created the show about Don McLean’s iconic song, by referencing other singers and their works and how the works are connected. Ross talks about the musicians and music of the time and what was going on in the United States and the world. He has created the world from where “American Pie” came.

In the digging Mike Ross and Sarah Wilson start with Don McLean as a kid delivering newspapers, when he reads that Buddy Holly (a huge musical influence in the late 1950s) died in a plane crash Feb. 3, 1959. He was 22. With him on the plane were The Big Bopper (Jiles Perry Richardson) and Ritchie Valens who also died. For Don McLean this was ‘the day the music died.’

Inside American Pie lists 13 songs, such as “Come on, Let’s Go” by Ritchie Valens, “Every Day” by Buddy Holly, and American Pie, the last song on the list.

Mike Ross and his terrific band of Prince Edward Island singers and musicians dress casual and play and sing with flair. The back drop seems innocuous at first—an arrangement of faded stars and stripes—and then you realize you’re looking at an American flag. It’s to the credit of this show and it’s gifted ‘cast’ that we are not overwhelmed by it because of what is going on with our neighbour to the south.

Mike Ross starts the concert with a wink and a smile. He begins to sing “American Pie” even though it’s listed as the last song. When he comes to the chorus, he looks out to the audience with a look that suggests it’s our cue to start singing, which we do. After a bit he says we are getting ahead of ourselves and he will come back to the song later.

Mike Ross is an engaging, enthusiastic narrator. He parses through the various aspects of the song, stanza by stanza, explaining what phrases mean or refer to. He notes sections that stumped him. “Good old boys are drinking whiskey n rye” makes no sense because they are really the same kind of drink. But then he offers, what if the line meant “Good old boys are drinking whiskey in Rye” meaning they were drinking in the town of Rye in upstate New York, where one of the ‘good old boys’ lived.  It’s stuff like this that makes Inside American Pie such a rich, provocative, entertaining time in the theatre. Mike Ross has also created startling, compelling arrangements of every one of the 13 songs.

With every reference in the song Mike Ross found a connection to what was going on the world at the time; or how it influenced other singers. Works of some of the other singers referenced are sung during the concert. And after Mike Ross ‘excavated’ the gems of information from each of Don McLean’s stanzas, Mike Ross and his wonderful band sang the whole song. And again, all it took was one look from Mike Ross to the audience to get them singing again, with gusto. Wonderful.

Mirvish  Productions Presents the Harmony House Production.

Plays until March 30, 2025.

Running time: 90 minutes (no intermission)

www.mirvish.com