The Last Piece premiered at Hart House last November 2024, engaging audiences with its exploration of memory, love, and loss. The musical follows Amara, an elderly woman navigating the reappearance of her ex-husband Andrew, who has recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. As Andrew’s condition worsens, Amara must confront unresolved feelings about their past while facing the heartbreaking reality of losing the man she once loved.
Behind this production was Olivia-Autumn Rennie, a PhD candidate at the IHPST. Autumn, who is also a medical student with a background in theatre, took on the role of director. She worked closely with playwright Shreya Jha, a fellow medical student at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine and accomplished musician, who had been developing The Last Piece for several years: “Shreya and I met during our medical school orientation in 2021,” Autumn shares. “We quickly discovered our mutual love for theatre and playwriting and grew closer while working on the medical school’s annual musical.” Shreya, having previously staged a version of The Last Piece, approached Autumn in the spring of 2024 to direct a refined iteration for Hart House Theatre. For Autumn, this was a chance to return to the venue where she had directed her own original musical, Queen of Hearts, the previous year.
While directing The Last Piece, Autumn was struck by the profound intersection of art and medicine woven into the narrative:
Art has a very special place in understanding illness. If we look across time and throughout the ages, art is really where human beings have turned to understand these difficult life experiences that evade reason and understanding
The production also served as a platform to raise awareness about Alzheimer’s disease and its impact on individuals and families, a topic of increasing relevance given Canada’s aging population.
The emotional resonance of The Last Piece was palpable during its performances. “We had tissue boxes ready for both the actors and the audience,” Autumn recalls. Members of the audience were deeply moved, and some of them shared personal stories about loved ones affected by dementia. Even Autumn, who had seen the musical countless times throughout rehearsals, found herself moved during performances. One song, "Moving Backwards," struck a particularly emotional chord, “every time I watched it, it was really hard not to cry or just let the tears come. Especially having experienced this with my own grandparents. There were a lot of emotions moving through that space, but that is what art is all about. It removes the need for logic alone, and allow us simply to feel and experience together.”
Autumn shared with us pictures of the play’s creative process, explaining the meaning and significance behind those images. Her answers were edited for length and clarity.
Photo Credit: Lindsey Middleton
With this particular iteration staged at Heart House Theatre, the goal was to workshop the piece and then stage a new version. What we worked on this summer was taking a previous version and refining it—identifying areas with gaps, figuring out what could be cut, and improving the overall flow. You can see me in the photo taking notes, and in the background is Jonah Nung, our fantastic musical director. I believe this moment was during a play reading with a musical number happening, and I was probably jotting down notes about character work.
As a director and writer, I focus heavily on character development and arcs. Storytelling can either stay surface-level or come to life in a much deeper way when the characters are complex and fully realized, rather than simple or one-dimensional. With a story like this one there is so much emotional complexity in a story like this, and we wanted to bring that to life through the characters. That is what we really worked on during this iteration—digging into the motivations and backstories of the characters, especially the two main ones. Shreya and I spent a lot of time figuring out how to make their journeys more compelling and nuanced.
It really felt like we were a team of three driving the musical forward—myself, Sabrina Pye, our incredible stage manager, and Jonah, the musical director. A stage manager is one of the most crucial roles in theatre, and they don’t get enough credit. Many people outside the theatre world don’t even know what a stage manager does or that the job exists. But they are the ones managing all the scheduling, room bookings, and logistics for staging the show. They ensure everything runs smoothly: calling cues, keeping everything organized, and so much more. Sabrina was an absolute superstar throughout this process. She managed every aspect of the project with such grace and efficiency. This was my first time working with her—we met in the summer during the play reading—and she is involved in so many things at Hart House, including their theatre productions.
And Jonah! Let me give him the shout-out he absolutely deserves. He is amazing. So down-to-earth but also so funny. This was also my first time working with him, though I believe Shreya had worked with him before. He is deeply involved in the arts community, and yet every single rehearsal and performance, he brought so much energy and enthusiasm. Jonah is also a phenomenal musician. I honestly feel so blessed to have worked with this team because everyone brought their own unique talents, and that really showed in the final production at Hart House. It was such a rewarding collaboration.
Hart House knew me from my own musical that I had previously done there, and we had a great working relationship. So, when it came to the core creative team, there were all these existing connections, it was just a matter of bringing everyone together with the cast. Whether it is film, theatre, or anything else, there is always this kind of scary but beautiful magic where the team either really gels and works together or it doesn’t. Thankfully, we had that magic this time around. But it was a long process, from the auditions to building the team, to finally bringing it all together.
Shreya developed the musical from the very beginning. Her process always starts with the music, with the dialogue coming later. As a naturally talented musician, that is just how she works. We talked about this, and she explained that much of her inspiration for the musical came from exploring how music can mimic and help us understand the experience of memory loss. There is a lot of research showing that music can aid with memory loss, but Shreya was curious about flipping that idea—using music to convey what memory loss feels like. For instance, themes that repeat throughout the musical or moments where the music begins to break down were used to reflect Andrew’s mental state as he experiences memory decline. It was such a fascinating aspect of the show, and it tied into the fact that most of the production was music-heavy, with very few sections free of music. As a director, I had to figure out how to fully utilize the power of the music while integrating it with the character work. As you can see in the photo, this was a concert version of the show, meaning the actors were relatively static at their music stands for most of the performance.
In the end, it all came together beautifully. You can see in the photo that everyone is having a great time. This was taken after our final show, so there is also a mix of relief and exhaustion in that moment, which feels very fitting for the journey we all went through.
This musical was fantastic in that, even though it deals with a serious topic—Alzheimer’s disease—you still get moments of comedic relief woven throughout. While the seriousness comes through, especially in the second act, Shreya did an amazing job incorporating lighter moments. Each character had their own standout moments, and “Jazzercise” happens relatively early in Act One.
This character here, Shelby—played by Mia Aubuchon—might honestly be my favorite character. “Jazzercise” was her song, and it is such a fun number. Shelby runs a weekly Jazzercise club for women in their sixties, and Andrew, the male lead, ends up joining the class. You can imagine the humor that comes out of that! Before the revisions, this scene was actually an Aqua Fit class, so it is always had that comedic element. But honestly, you had to be there to really experience it. Mia completely owned the character and brought so much energy and humor to the song—it was hilarious. Every single show had the audience laughing.
I think it is so important to have moments like this in a musical that tackles heavy themes. It creates texture and contrast, allowing the audience to laugh and feel lighter, which makes the heavier moments later in the show even more impactful. I absolutely loved “Jazzercise.” It was such a great number.
Relatively early in the production process —sometime in October— we had to make decisions about the set design. For example, in the previous musical I worked on at the theatre, we had big set pieces, projections on the back wall, and a lot happening visually. For this production, we considered different approaches but ultimately decided to keep it classy and simple, relying on lighting rather than elaborate set design to bring the story to life.
I have to give a huge shoutout to Arianna Skirzynska, our lighting designer. She is actually a PhD student in engineering at U of T, but she is also an incredible creative. Sabrina, as stage manager, and I worked together to develop some basic ideas for the lighting, focusing on how it could shift depending on the song and the transitions. Then Arianna and I collaborated to fine-tune those ideas. Lighting is a lot more complex than people often realize: it is not just flipping a switch or pressing a button for a color change. If you look at the lighting board, for example, it shows the layout of all the lights above the stage. From there, you can make incredibly precise adjustments to create very specific effects. As a director, my role wasn’t to program the lighting, that is Arianna’s expertise. Instead, I focused on communicating the vision: what I wanted the lighting to achieve, the mood it needed to convey, and so on. Arianna then used her technical knowledge to bring that vision to life, and together we refined the details.
Sabrina was also crucial in this process. As you can see in the photo, she is standing on stage during one of our lighting sessions. Lighting is not a one-and-done process; it takes time, trial and error, and lots of adjustments. For instance, you might test a lighting setup, realize it is not quite working, and make tweaks. You also need people on stage during these tests to ensure the lights are focused correctly, for instance, hitting the actors’ faces rather than, say, behind their heads or too far in front.
In the end, I was so happy with how the lighting enhanced the story. It is a process that takes much more time and effort than most people realize, which is why I thought this photo was a great way to show the complexity of a theatre lighting board and everything that goes into creating the effects the audience sees on stage.
I was not expecting this. I had not gone into Doug’s office anticipating anything like this beautiful note (Doug Floyd is the Director of Theatre and Performing Arts at Hart House). I think I was just checking in about something related to the show when Doug said, “Oh, I have something for you,” and handed me the rose along with this lovely note. It was so touching because it reminded me of a similar note I received last year for the Queen of Hearts musical.
That note, written on Heart House paper, was incredibly affirming for me at the time. Back then, I was at a crossroads in my life, I literally did my IHSPT interview in one of the dressing rooms during Queen of Hearts. That was the moment I decided to pursue an interdisciplinary PhD and fully embrace this dual path as a medical professional and an artist. Receiving that first note from Doug during such a pivotal time felt like a sign that I was on the right path.
Now, a year later, to be back in the same dressing room, receiving another handwritten note before opening night, was such a powerful full-circle moment. Doug’s sign-off “Break legs, steal hearts” is just perfect. Four words, but so meaningful and beautiful. The rose, too, was such a lovely, unexpected gesture. I actually took this photo for myself as a way to capture the moment and remember how I felt before opening night. But as I was going through my photos to decide what to share, this one stood out as the most personal. It represents something so special to me as an artist. Maybe it is just because I am cheesy and sentimental —this is what we artists do— but I adore handwritten notes. These are the kinds of things I cherish forever. I literally keep them on my wall, my fridge, or in a special keepsake box. This note, paired with the rose, is one of those treasures I will hold onto. It was such a meaningful and unexpected gesture, and it really touched me deeply.