Echoes of Paris in Montreal
Cat Preston as Amélie Poulain and Billy Iliopoulos as Nino Quincampoix
Amélie is a 2001 French film that follows the titular character as she learns how to break out of her shell after a very isolating childhood, including losing her mother at a very young age. Over the years, the film has gained a cult following not just because of the romance central to the story, but how the characters build community with each other despite their hardships. This story was so popular, in fact, that a musical was adapted in 2015 for Broadway, before being reworked and finding its footing in the West End. Now Montreal will be blessed with a limited run from Friday, August 28th to Sunday the 30th at the Centaur Theatre. This staging is produced by Penumbra Theatre Pénombre, who also mounted a run of the musical back in February 2025.
The play's original run on Broadway wasn’t overly successful, because it lacked everything that made the movie appealing, specifically no whimsical music, and the removal of anything culturally French. The show only lasted less than three months before closing, then being workshopped and moving to the West End. This is the version that has been brought to Montreal. The director, Adrian Saldanha, had purchased the rights to the script and the music several years back. While this has restricted the production in many ways, there’s also been a lot of effort to make adjustments to appeal to Montrealers. For example, instead of trying to force the actors into having a French accent, many of them purposefully have Quebecois accents giving France a more cosmopolitan feel that wasn’t present in the original film or musical.
“Part of the rights agreement is that we’re not really allowed to modify the text, we’re not really allowed to adjust the music. [..] We’ve leaned into the cosmopolitan truth of Paris which is also the cosmopolitan truth of Montreal.” Adrian explains.
This adaptation also attempts to explore the characters more through the music. The play leans into traditional Broadway structures, like where a character keeps speaking until the music swells and they can`t talk anymore so they must sing. It also explores more of Amélie’s relationship with her mother and how that affects her. Previous versions had the relationship existing much more in the subtext, rather than explicitly spoken.
“My approach to musicals is if you’re singing right now you cannot be singing because of the script, you need to have a reason to be singing these lines. Amélie in this show does not do a lot of talking. There's a lot of singing, but the moments that get the music stock and people ask her a simple question she kind of just freezes and doesn’t know how to speak. So, I think the music enhances the core material in that it uses songs to show Amélie’s active imagination,” he continues.
The first run of this musical was back in February of last year. It ran for two weeks at the Mainline Theatre, which presented several challenges for the production. Not only were there several storms that led to dozens of empty seats, but the stage seriously limited what they could do. For those of you who never had the pleasure of visiting the Mainline, it’s a much smaller venue with seating on three sides. Meaning that the actors, dancers and instrumentalists had to be on the stage at the same time. This did, however, create a more intimate viewing, and the actors had to make sure that they played for each side of the stage.
This run will take place at the Centaur Theatre for only three days. The decision for a short run was based on several factors, specifically that Penumbra Theatre Pénombre has yet to turn a profit on any of their productions. So frugality is key. But the stage is also much larger which presents a new challenge for the team. They’ve kept the more intimate feeling while adding grander set pieces that immerses the audience into Amélie’s world. Adrian described this production as a musical for people, like himself, who don’t like musicals.
“If you don’t like musicals, I still think you’ll like this production of Amélie. What we rely on in this show is telling the story about grief, loss and self actualization and being able to become an active character in your own story instead of a passive observer.”
WHAT: Amélie - The Musical
WHERE: Centaur Theatre, 453 R. Saint-François-Xavier, Montréal, QC H2Y 2T1
WHEN: August 28th - 30th, 2026
METRO: Place d’Armes (Orange)
TICKETS: Centaur Theatre
