In celebration of the venue’s 35th anniversary season, The Firehall Arts Centre has re-mounted its hit show, Chelsea Hotel: The Songs of Leonard Cohen, back to the stage now to April 21 and to pay homage to the late Mr. Cohen. Featuring six artists playing seventeen different instruments, this award-winning production has toured across Canada to sold out audiences. This was my first time seeing this reknown musical which was well orchestrated.

Haunted by memories of his tumultuous love life, a writer checks into New York’s infamous Chelsea Hotel desperate to find the words and inspiration for his next song. Wading through past relationships, he reluctantly comes face to face with the love of the present, a love he wishes he could not only forget, but erase from memory.

Leonard Cohen’s powerful and inspirational music is the heartbeat for Chelsea Hotel. Through Cohen’s transcendent songs and the honesty of his lyrics, audiences will be transfixed by this eclectic cabaret of loves won and lost and become witness in the search for the words to cure love’s pain.

Conceived and directed by Tracey Power, with musical arrangements by Steve Charles, Chelsea Hotel: The Songs of Leonard Cohen is an inventive fusion of music, dance, and theatre that invites its audience into the hotel room of a creative mind and takes them on a poetic musical journey.

Plays at The Firehall Arts Centre through to April 21; Performance Times:  Tues, 7pm | Wed-Fri, 8pm | Sat, 3pm & 8pm | Sun, 3pm | Wed, 1pm on select dates; you can get tickets here.

By: Richard Wolak