Strike! comes to CBC Radio
Danny Schur’s musical might have been more fitting for the Mother Corp. in 2005
Jen Zoratti

On May 15, 1919, nearly 30,000 Winnipeg workers walked off the job in what would later be called ‘Canada’s most influential strike.’

A city-wide shut-down ensued and was punctuated by arrests, beatings and the deaths of two men.

For some, the Winnipeg General Strike is a long-ago chapter in our city’s history, but for producer/composer Danny Schur it was the perfect inspiration for… a musical.

Schur’s award-winning musical Strike! is returning to the stage this year to commemorate the 88th anniversary of the General Strike, but this time the critically acclaimed stage show has been outfitted for radio. CBC Radio is taping a May 15 performance for broadcast in the fall, and audience members will get to experience Strike! in a new setting, both logistically and artistically.

“The first difference is that it’s indoors,” Schur says. “That was a huge situation in ’04 and ’05 (when the show played at Rainbow Stage). A lot of people couldn’t and wouldn’t come in that weather.

“Artistically, you get the focus you would get at a movie theatre,” he continues. “It’s all about the songs in this show, but you still — almost — get the full-meal deal as the musical. It’s just a condensed, focused and super-entertaining adaptation.”

The musical, which Schur penned and composed, has been entertaining and educating audiences in various incarnations since 2004. It made its full-scale stage debut at Rainbow in ’05, and a 17-minute short film adaptation followed in 2006.

Adapting his own work isn’t new territory for Schur, but he says self-editing is still difficult.

“The adaptations are hugely challenging,” Schur says. “As the original writer, you lose that objectivity of what you should or shouldn’t do.”

To that end, Schur enlisted the help of long-time Strike! collaborator Rick Chafe to help trim down the original musical by nearly 40 minutes.

“The radio show will ultimately be 55 minutes,” he says. “The full musical is 90 minutes. You have to cut out so much, but you still want depth and character journeys. This was actually tougher than adapting the stage version to the screenplay.”

Although the musical ambitiously tackles the socio-political issues that come along with the history of the Winnipeg General Strike in an accessible, pop-history way, Schur’s inspiration for writing was less left-leaning than you might think.

Intrigued by the story of Mike Sokolowski, a Ukrainian protester killed in a riot during the strike, Schur got in touch with his own Ukrainian-Canadian background and approached the strike as an immigration story as opposed to a labour tale.

“You can’t just look at it as a labour issue,” Schur says. “Of course it is one, but there were social issues, obvious immigration issues and women’s issues deeply rooted in there as well — all things that lend themselves very well to drama. I think the musical tells the story in a different way.”

Though the Winnipeg General Strike happened nearly 90 years ago, Schur says its social and political parallels to today continue to make his work vital.

“Now that I’m 40, one of the biggest things I’ve learned is that times change but people don’t,” Schur says. “I remember when I was 20 and I would think, ‘How were people so dumb?’ But when you see it happen again in your lifetime, you get it. That’s something I find really intriguing.”