Montreal musical writer makes her Off-Broadway debut in New York

Jill Ohayon from Dollard-des-Ormeaux put her law career on hold to follow a childhood dream.

Three years ago, she moved to New York to study musical theatre writing at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, where she met composer Andy Li.

Together, they created The Garden Bridge — a historical musical about a Jewish and a Chinese family in wartime Shanghai.

“I am the daughter of a Jewish Moroccan immigrant, and my writing partner is the son of two Chinese American immigrants,” said Ohayon, Librettist of The Garden Bridge. “So when we first wrote together, we wrote a piece about a Jewish family having dinner at a Chinese restaurant on New Year’s Eve, on Christmas Eve, brother. And we loved working together, and we decided that we wanted to work together in second year.”

“Then, when talking to our advisor, she was like, did you know about the Jewish refugees who fled the Holocaust to Shanghai during World War II? And neither of us heard about it, but we were very hooked on it,” added Andy Li, composer.

To develop the musical style of The Garden Bridge, Andy Li combined influences from Viennese classical music and regional Chinese folk traditions

“Our Jewish family from Vienna, they’re generally higher class before moving to or fleeing to Shanghai during World War II, when they got all that taken away from them. And so for me, like Vienna is such an important city for classical music,” said Li. “And for the Chinese side, we looked at a lot of folk traditions in the region around Shanghai. And there’s a song that’s inspired by this style called Suzhou Pingtan, which is this kind of story song that is very particular to that region.”

The show was chosen from over 400 submissions for the SheNYC Arts Festival and will be staged at the Classic Stage Company Off-Broadway on July 23, 26 & 27.

Jill and Andy are now in rehearsal in New York and have launched an online fundraising campaign to help bring the production to life — and they’re inviting Montrealers to support the journey.

“I’m looking at the list and seeing dozens of people who are flying in from Canada to come and see it, it’s just a really big honour and it’s very, very humbling,” added Ohayon.