Stage/Theatre

What: The Guide to Being Fabulous
Where: Soulpepper Theatre, 50 Tank House Lane
When: Now, until Sun., Nov. 12
Highlight: Music director Michael Shand’s brilliant jazz piano skills
Rating: NNNN (out of 5)
Why you should go: The show is an intoxicating feast of visual and sonic delights.

SOULPEPPER THEATRE artistic director Weyni Mengesha blasted off her tenure in 2019 with a production of A Streetcar Named Desire that used live music to dynamic effect, conjuring the play’s New Orleans setting with painterly vibrancy.

That production will return as part of Soulpepper’s packed 2024 season. In the meantime, however, Mengesha is directing another jazz-filled show: the world premiere of actress Sandra Caldwell’s memoir-musical The Guide to Being Fabulous. Part of the company’s women-focused “Her Words Festival,” the show is an intoxicating feast of visual and sonic delights.

Between occasional songs, Caldwell (who’s in her early 70s) recounts her action-packed life. She lives nomadically, jumping around from Washington, D.C., to Montreal to Paris to Toronto and beyond — though she’s always drawn back to the discoquethes and burlesque clubs of New York.

She gets arrested a few times and tries out several different jobs before eventually auditioning for theatre and booking it right away. The rest of her acting success (a couple Broadway shows, The Cheetah Girls, The Book of Negroes) is history, so the show focuses on it less.

Caldwell’s play-by-play script is arranged chronologically, conventionally even. But Mengesha ensures it’s never boring. Two other performers, Tiffany Deriveau and Miss Niki Nikita, break up Caldwell’s monologue, playing various roles and executing energetic choreography by Rodney Diverlus.

The show’s design piles on further theatricality. Anahita Dehbonehie’s set features an audience-piercing runway and glows with neon wires. This razzle-dazzle is occasionally paused by Frank Donato’s projections, which use archival material to provide context and visual interest. And lighting designer Michelle Ramsay contrasts the radiance of the piece’s showier moments with dramatic, shadowy looks during intimate scenes.

But the music is the real bringer of momentum. Even when Caldwell isn’t singing through her and James Dower’s stylish songs, music director Michael Shand is often wailing away on keys, alternating between piano and synthesizer; his sizzling, clean jazz lines hold the show together.

Sometimes it seems half the world’s media concludes with the message “be yourself.” The Guide to Being Fabulous is no different there — but Caldwell’s performance gives an old theme new life. Though Mengesha’s production hurricanes fiercely around her, she is a surprisingly understated eye. A couple downstage computer monitors (and multiple opening night quips) even indicate she hasn’t yet succeeded at learning her mountainous amount of lines.

Here’s the thing, though: this is her life. We know it, she knows it. There’s no need for a grandiose, back-row performance. Sometimes, being down to earth is fabulous enough.