Mother-daughter team adds musical twist to reality TV tropes

Ahead of Mother’s Day, a new musical written by a Winnipeg mother-daughter duo is set to première tonight at the Gargoyle Theatre.

A high-wire satire of two beloved artforms — the rom-com and the reality dating program — The Perfect Man is the brainchild of Sara Kreindler, who composed the rollicking score, influenced by Tom Lehrer, Cole Porter and the Andrews Sisters, and her mother Reena, who sharpened Sara’s dialogue and kept the Lubitschian screwball structure in check.

In The Perfect Man, anthropologist Anita Stephen (Carlyn Graff-Czehryn, a standout in Sick & Twisted Theatre’s annual holiday panto) travels to the shooting location of a popular reality dating show only to find out that her research will be first-hand: host Gerry Cole (Chase Winnicky) informs Anita that she’s been made a contestant, and the lovely bachelor (Reid McTavish) is none other than her high school crush.

Directed by Sharon Bajer, who will also direct this summer’s Rainbow Stage production of Jesus Christ Superstar, the original musical is a co-production of the Gargoyle Theatre and the Winnipeg Studio Theatre.

Frequent Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre and Rainbow Stage performer Victoria Exconde choreographs, with set and costume design by Anika Binding.

Though at times parents and children can clash when collaborating on creative projects, the Kreindlers are each other’s biggest supporters.

Throughout her career in health-care policy and research, Sara Kreindler — a former Rhodes scholar and University of Manitoba research chair — has routinely thanked her mother in academic journals for her editorial oversight.

“She was the only editor I trusted to make things better and not worse,” she says.

That was also the case on The Perfect Man, which Sara Kreindler calls “the musical where I learned how to write a musical, not how to write songs, which I’ve been doing since I was in my high chair.”

Reena Kreindler nods.

Since Sara was a little girl, the energetic elder Kreindler has marvelled at her daughter’s quick wit and linguistic chops.

“In elementary school there was a girl who was bullying her, so she says to her, ‘I write so many epigrams to use that make the people laugh. I’m tired of writing epigrams — I want to write your epitaph,” recalls Reena Kreindler, who studied with the Black Hole Theatre at the U of M during her undergraduate days.

“I wasn’t a performer, but I have a soft voice and strong ideas about development of character. I lean toward expression of themes — I’m good at that. I remember seeing a T-shirt at the fringe long ago, and it said, ‘A critic is like a dog who knows the way but can’t drive the car.’ That’s me, so I stick to directing.”

The duo has collaborated in topical theatre before: in 1995, they mounted a fringe show called The Phantom of the Deficit. During her time at Oxford University, Sara also performed in Gilbert and Sullivan companies.

“She was Princess Ida,” Reena says, beaming.

Past fringe productions include I Married the King of the Underworld, and My Mom Freaked, the Kreindlers’ take on the myth of Persephone.

The Kreindlers also worked together on Sara’s 2023 online musical Larry Saves the Canadian Healthcare System. Directed by Ann Hodges, the digital production featured 13 local performers and was produced using unused research funding during the pandemic.

In the McGill Journal of Education, Kreindler referred to the production as “a research-based satirical musical tackling fundamental health policy issues.”

“Despite growing evidence of the potential of arts-based modalities to translate knowledge and spark discussion on complex issues, applications to health policy are rare,” reads the abstract to a paper co-authored by Kreindler and featured in the National Library of Medicine in 2024. “This study explored the potential of a research-based theatrical video to increase public capacity and motivation to engage with the complex issues that make emergency-department wait times such an intractable problem.”

The Perfect Man was a bit less bureaucratic, but that didn’t make it any less fun.

“I remember watching Bachelor in Paradise about 10 years ago, seeing the heightened performances, the cheesy tropes and everything dressed up with this mock grandeur, and I said, ‘Hey, I think this is a musical,” Sara says.

Reena Kreindler agreed, and counts herself lucky to call her daughter her favourite collaborator.

“The word is bandied about, but it’s my most profound blessing to be able to work together with my beloved daughter,” she says. “She did put my name on this — the credit is there. But I’m one of those who’ve had greatness thrust upon me.”

Sara Kreindler blushes, but she’s heard this one before.

winnipegfreepress.com/benwaldman