A stage musical based on The Great Gatsby is coming to a Vaughan theatre thanks to the creative mind of 17-year-old Laura Nobili.
The production of Gatsby, taking place at the City Playhouse Theatre on Wednesday, Oct. 18, is a jazz musical based on the classic novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Composed, produced and directed by Nobili, it features 22 musical numbers orchestrated for big band.
With a lively jazz style and playful melodies, Gatsby, like the 1959 novel before it, tells the story of Nick Carraway and his interactions with mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and the latter’s obsession with reuniting with his former lover, Daisy Buchanan, during the Jazz Age of the 1920s.
“My goal when writing the music was to reflect the elegance of the time period through sound,” said Nobili. “In addition, the rich symbolism in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel served as inspiration for reoccurring musical themes — transferring the symbolic messages into the music.”
At only 17, Nobili has already written an array of instrumentations for professional and student musicians across the country. In May of 2023, she premiered her first stage production, Macbeth the Musical. She is also the composer of the piano book The Rainbow of Music and a contributor to A Journey Through Canada. Nobili teaches piano and flute, in addition to performing classical voice, flute and piano.
Tickets to Laura Nobili’s Gatsby are available at cityplayhouse.ca.