Panto Pandemonium: Music, Mayhem & The West Van Story

East Van Panto is back for its 13th rollicking run—this year’s East Van Panto: West Van Story mashes up two legendary tales and two Vancouver neighbourhoods for a season of laugh-out-loud chaos. Composer Veda Hille returns to score the fun alongside playwrights Marcus Youssef & Pedro Chamale and first-time East Van director Chelsea Haberlin—bringing music, mischief, and a whole lot of heart to the stage. In this Q&A, Veda dissects the soundtrack of silliness, the joy of community theatre, and why panto still feels like Vancouver’s best holiday tradition. —Noa Nichol

The Panto is famous for being riotously silly and strangely tender — how do you balance comedy and heart in your music so the audience is laughing one minute and choking up the next?

Great question.  Basically, comedy comes first absolutely.  Then the heart just kinda sneaks in on its own….I guess it echoes my own experience in the East Van Panto.  We laugh a ton while we’re making it, and by the end it’s a big ol’ love fest.  

This year’s show crisscrosses East Van and West Van — did any local sounds, accents or neighbourhood vibes sneak into your score? If so, where should we listen for them?

We play with genre a lot in this year’s Panto.  I’m loosely trying to hook the West Van characters up with TikTok dances, and the East Van gang with more of a jazzy street thing.  And then there’s just the vibe of pantomime over everything, which is….. pop vaudeville cartoon madness?

You’re writing for live performance with alternating keyboardists and percussion — what’s your secret for keeping the music tight but flexible night to night?

It’s an incredible challenge, believe me! The real secret is to make sure that the cast and band all have really strong relationships.  Maybe this sounds a little woo-woo, but it’s crucial that everyone trust each other. It makes us able to roll with whatever happens. 

Dance battles, civic resistance and rom-com swoons all feature in the new script — which scene did you most enjoy writing music for, and why?

Oh gosh, that’s a tough one. We have a very epic end to Act 1, which is where you have to sum up all the action, and the problems the characters are having.  I don’t want to give away the song, but it is a very Big Number from another popular musical, and I had a lot of fun bending it to our purposes.

East Van Panto has a devoted annual audience — does that tradition influence your creative process? Do you ever write with specific regulars in mind?

When I’m choosing the songs for East Van Panto I feel like I’m making a mixtape for the neighbourhood.  So that’s an act of love, at least in my Gen-X mind. I also try to make sure that we don’t repeat the same artists as the year before.  And I try to cover songs from all through the last 60 years, because we have people of all ages coming to the show. (But secretly, I am most excited to make the teens happy.)

If you could pick one instrument or sonic motif that sums up the spirit of this year’s show, what would it be and how does it show up in the music?

This show relies on the drums!  This year we have drummer Kate Johnson, and she’s the real engine for both the songs and the underscoring.  When we first started East Van Panto 13 years ago I was playing along with a 1970s Lowrey drum machine; I am forever grateful to have a human onstage now.

Panto music can be wildly theatrical — what’s the funniest or most unexpected musical moment in the show that always gets a laugh (or made you laugh while composing)?

A lot of music gets written in the rehearsal room, since we can’t work on the underscoring without seeing what the actors are doing.  Our team is very funny, always.  The best laughs are in the room, in rehearsal and then onstage.  But there’s always a moment when I’m writing on my own, sometime in the late spring, and suddenly I’ll be laughing out loud, or actually crying.  That’s how I recognize that something will work.  This year the waterworks started up when I managed to get a certain K-Pop hit into the finale.  You never know where the feelings are hiding.

Finally, you’ve become a Panto institution — any pre-show rituals or superstitions you swear by before the opening night (besides tuning the keys)?

For our opening night my gift to the cast and crew is a pair of signature cocktails, one with alcohol and one without.  I try to make something themed for the show; I haven’t figured it out yet this year.  And of course, that’s for after we’ve done the show.  Beforehand I just try to hold hands with everyone, as we start the long wild ride of the East Van Panto.  On we go, look behind you!