Composer, singer, and arranger Sarah Slean has created the music for The Importance of Being Earnest at the Stratford Festival. The play by Oscar Wilde is a comedy, it’s full title The Importance of Being Earnest, a Trivial Comedy for Serious People.
The story is a parody of Victorian manners and the dramatic norms of Wilde’s day, and is characterized by his celebrated wit.
The play began previews on May 19 and runs until Oct. 23, 2026, with opening night on June 18.
It marks Slean’s debut at the Stratford Festival, but is only the next step in a long and varied career.
Sarah Slean
Sarah Slean began her career in music early, signed to Atlantic Records as a singer-songwriter while still a teenager. She has since released 11 albums of her own music, netted four JUNO and two Gemini nominations, and won a Canadian Screen Award for music along the way. She has toured internationally as a solo artist.
Sarah has also written books of poetry and starred in short films. She’s composed works for chamber ensembles, written film scores, and worked with orchestras across Canada, including the 2021 JUNO nominated collaboration and recording with Symphony Nova Scotia.
She’s a classically trained musician and composer with a Masters degree in Composition, and has created orchestral arrangements of both her own music and that of other pop singers. She’s sung the world premieres of several works by contemporary composers.
Recent work includes composing a musical on the life of Maud Lewis for Theatre Calgary/National Arts Centre, and commissions for the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Iris Trio, Elora Singers, and Against the Grain Theatre.
Sarah Slean: The Interview
“All I really understood about myself as a person growing up and getting an education and all that, was that I loved music,” Slean says.
As she notes, she was signed to a recording contract at the age of 18 as a university music student. She left school to tour for 25 years, but eventually, did finish her degree. She finished her Master’s when she was in her 40s.
“I was always really interested in school, and interested in succeeding, but I was always really just interested in music. I was very lucky to be making music of the kind that was popular at the time,” she says.
“That felt really great for a time, but then it became really frustrating and even confining.” Even with a record company that she describes as accommodating — allowing her, for example, to include a string octet on her debut album — she became less and less enchanted with the pop music industry.
“It was unsatisfying,” Sarah says. “I wanted to make music that connected with me.”
Music & Theatre
“When I was a small elementary school child, my parents took me to stage musicals,” she says. She recalls singing the lyrics of the latest hit musicals with her friends. The genre captivated her imagination.
“It’s the marriage of sound and emotion, and how easily manipulated we are with sound to feel.” She likens it to scoring music for films. “You can use sound, and your knowledge of music […] to manipulate human emotion, and that to me is fun and interesting.”
She describes taking part at a composing for film residency at the Canadian Music Centre. At one point, she was shown film footage without music, and it brought home the crucial role that music plays in movies.
“It’s dead. And you put music to it, and it [comes to life]. Without music it does not breathe and live.”
Composing for theatre and film was a process of development. “I was a songwriter,” she pointed out. Orchestration came along later. “Musical theatre is the intersection of so many musical disciplines,” she points out. It involves not just the music, but the text, songwriting skills, what she calls the “nitty gritty of tambral”, or tone colours, and orchestral setting.
“That’s what I love about musical theatre.”
Collaboration
She points out that working on theatrical productions also means interacting with several other professionals. “You work with so many of them,” she says.
“The older I get, the more I want to collaborate,” she adds. “The more you develop your skills, you develop ruts and habits,” Slean says. Working with other artists shows you new ways of doing things that you’d never have thought of on your own. “That’s how you get out of your ruts,” Slean says.
“They surprise you with their own uniqueness. I just recently did an opera commission with Against the Grain Theatre. I had a very celebrated librettist writing the words.” Slean notes, they were words that she’d never have used herself.
“In and of itself, it’s so creatively inspiring. Collaboration is what I want to do from here on out.”
The Play
“I’m not writing songs for this,” Sarah says of her work at Stratford. “I’m writing the incidental music for transitions, and trying to capture the spirit of the play in short little bits.”
Earnest director Krista Jackson sent the creative team a Google drive full of research on Oscar Wilde and the play to work with.
“Really, [it’s] truly so inspiring to work at this level,” Slean says. “It really helped me to wrap my head around what it would sound like.” It narrowed down the palette she drew on when creating the music.
Sarah says she loves the play and production.
“It’s so funny, and the actors are so superb,” she says.
Naturally, an Oscar Wilde play poses its own criteria. “The play really rests on the words,” she notes.
At preview performances, Slean says the production team was gratified to see the audience laughing at all the right moments.
The Production
The production team has created a unique environment for Oscar Wilde’s work.
“It’s period with an injection of a kind of super saturated somewhat over the top vibrancy,” Sarah describes, “a bit of neon in the set and paintings. The costumes? “Period times five,” she laughs.
“To me, that was the modern element, just the extra layer of icing in neon green and orange and pink.”
It inspired her to inject a note of silliness into the music, without diving into slapstick.
“It’s very elegant too,” she says, citing the set design by Bretta Gerecki. “It’s so imaginative. There are references to period, but with that extra dimension,” Slean adds.
“The sets really helped me to imagine how I’d add a little elegance.”
Naturally, there are advantages to working with a team with the kind of resources that the Stratford Festival can muster.
“It’s so inspiring for that reason,” Sarah says. “It lifts everyone.” She also credits the atmospheric lighting design by Imogen Wilson.
Final Thoughts
“It’s a real honour to be a part of it,” she says.
“I still love performing, and do a lot of performing, but the composing is catching up, and I love doing a lot of both. I love composing because it brings me these beautiful worlds,” Sarah adds.
“I want to be working in these environments with these kinds of people, and making new Canadian work.”
Performances
The Importance of Being Earnest runs at the Stratford Festival until October 23, 2026, with an opening date of June 18.
- Find tickets and show details [HERE].
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