A Ladylike Murder, Victoria College Drama Society’s entirely student-written musical theatre production, made its way to Isabel Bader Theatre on March 8. The Varsity recently sat down with the writers, director, and composer of the new show.

The play is set in the Victorian era and focuses largely on  — you guessed it — a murder. It examines the class and gender divisions that occur in almost every society and the societal pressures that accompany them.

Joseph Trefler, the show’s creator and composer, explains, “It’s about the social pressures of that time, but we think it reflects a lot on society today and how people feel about social norms and about pressure to act a certain way… The plot is truly a tragedy, but there are many comic elements to it.”

To get any show to be theatre-ready is an accomplishment. For this production, which was written, composed, and directed purely by students, this was a major feat. With the involvement of over 100 people including the cast, crew, production teams and orchestra members, there was a lot of arranging to be done.

“Whenever you are doing something like that with so many people and so many opinions, it’s of course a challenge to get it streamlined into a single direction,” Trefler explains.

“I’d say it has been going surprisingly well though,” adds Nicole Bazuin, director of A Ladylike Murder. Bazuin and Trefler collaborated on a thesis film project at Ryerson and have been working together ever since. “Considering this is a new show and we’ve kind of had to fast track the process of putting together a new show, I think it’s a testament to the talents of everyone involved and everybody’s the dedication to the project.” A Ladylike Murder will be Bazuin’s theatre debut, as she has previously worked exclusively in film.

The evolution behind the script and the music of A Ladylike Murder spans over two years. Trefler approached Aviva Philipp-Muller, a first-year drama student, with the original script and music, and Philipp-Muller took Trefler’s music and plot ideas to create the full script. Since then, the music and the characters have undergone an entire transformation.

“Some of the only things that are still intact are the main climax of the show and most of the main characters, although they have undergone changes as well,” explains Trefler. “When I came to Aviva, it was really just an outline because I had basically decided to get away from everything I had written previously and start from scratch.”

It’s a play with many dark elements, so the team tried to balance the drama with entertainment and humour.

“It straddles fun elements, because it has moments that are comedic, it has moments in the music that are really fun, but then it also has the dark elements. So because it has the best of those two worlds, I think that makes it different from really anything else that’s out there,” comments Philipp-Muller.

One of the team’s favourite parts of creating their own musical is being able to entirely mould the audience’s perceptions from start to finish. “With this, you go in with no preconceived notions, and you really get to learn who these characters are while you’re in the theatre and really get to know them and grow to love them there in that moment,” Philipp-Muller explains.

Incorporating classic big Broadway-style chorus numbers and flashy songs, A Ladylike Murder is a must-see for musical theatre lovers. “If you love musical theatre, I think this a show you really should see because it is a show that does push boundaries in musical theatre to some extent when you are focusing a show around murder,” explains Trefler

Bazuin adds, “it’s a great opportunity for [students] to see something that their peers are involved in, and it’s a musical that’s made by young people, and I think that’s what’s really important about it.”