ShowHub Feature: Meet Me at Vie’s – A Musical Celebration of Hogan’s Alley
Return to Hogan’s Alley: A ShowHub Interview with Meet Me at Vie’s stars Krystle Dos Santos & Dawn Pemberton
by Luc LeMans
Take a stroll along the south edge of Vancouver’s Strathcona neighbourhood, and you may happen upon a certain residential alleyway, hemmed in tightly by garage doors and telephone poles, and decorated only with red wildflowers springing up through the gravel. Today it’s not much to look at, but if you listen very closely, you may just hear echoes of laughter, big band swing, and the voice of ol’ Satchmo himself. This is Hogan’s Alley, legendary entertainment district, and unofficial home to Vancouver’s Black community for nearly 60 years.
Once crammed tight with bustling speakeasies, music clubs, and diners, the indisputable heart of the neighbourhood was Vie’s Chicken & Steak, a late night restaurant and local hangout. Over the years, Hogan’s Alley and Vie’s saw such legendary guests as Nat ‘King’ Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne, and Louis Armstrong. Beloved local Nora Hendrix worked frequently at Vie’s as a cook, often with her young grandson Jimi in tow.
Unceremoniously bulldozed in the 1970s (ostensibly to facilitate construction of the Georgia Viaduct), Hogan’s Alley and its iconic history have receded into the margins of Vancouver lore — until now. With the help of Infidels Jazz and a talented crew of creatives, Krystle Dos Santos is turning the lights back on in the alley one more time.
A brand new show featuring a host of original songs, Meet Me at Vie’s is a celebration of music, culture, and Canada’s Black history. I recently sat down with creator Krystle Dos Santos and co-star Dawn Pemberton to chat about the production.
Meet the Artists
So the show is set at Vie’s Chicken & Steak, a late-night hotspot that operated in Hogan’s Alley. For folks who may not be familiar, what exactly was Hogan’s Alley?
Krystle: Hogan’s Alley was this thriving Vancouver neighbourhood from the 1910s all the way to the 60s. It started going downhill around then, because it received no support from city hall. Vie’s Chicken & Steak was a local after hours spot, and it operated in Hogan’s Alley for nearly 30 years. It opened at 5pm, and stayed open until 5 in the morning. And for that reason, they got really interesting clientele: late night taxi workers, police officers, longshoremen, porters.
And also some of the big stars of the day, right? I read that Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne, Nat ‘King’ Cole all stopped in at one time or another.
Krystle: Yeah, superstars like them who were playing the venues downtown would come into Vie’s afterwards. Partly because there was really nowhere else open, and partly because there wasn’t segregation in Hogan’s Alley. Even though Canada didn’t have the same kind of segregation laws as America at the time, there was de facto segregation, 100 percent.
What inspired you to turn this slice of Vancouver history into a full-scale production?
Krystle: Well, I had co-created another show called Hey Viola! about Viola Desmond. The idea for that show came about when the ten dollar bill with her picture was released in 2018. So I had spent quite a few years on the story of this powerhouse black woman from the East Coast, and I thought “We must have somebody from the West Coast too!” I’d heard of Hogan’s Alley and Vie’s, but it was always just in passing. And I thought, “Why isn’t this forefront information?” Everyone knows Canada’s white history, but I think we need to put all cross-sections of black history at the forefront of conversation.
Your first preview performance is tomorrow. How many hours of show prep and rehearsal has it taken to get here?
Dawn: Krystle has been working since September, when she started researching the project and drafting. In terms of rehearsal, our cast has only been together for a few weeks. Folks are coming off of other projects, Chris Davis [co-writer & trumpeter] just flew in from New York. Since the end of March, we’ve done a few table reads, and last week was the first week we were all in the room together. It’s really exciting, and it keeps us on our toes.
A little stressful too, maybe?
Dawn: A little bit [laughs]. But for productions like this, it’s a pretty common schedule actually. It’s very rare to have lots of rehearsal time.
What kind of music can we expect? Any hints?
Dawn: I’d say, like, 98% original music?
Krystle: Yeah, we make a couple musical references in the show. It’s no secret that Jimi Hendrix is from the neighbourhood — Nora Hendrix (a Vancouver local, and cook at Vie’s) was his grandmother. So we referenced one of Jimi’s songs, for instance.
Wow, and the rest of the music is brand-new?
Krystle: Yeah. Chris Davis composed the music and I worked on the lyrics, making sure that they would fit with the themes of the story. It was definitely a co-write, but I give more credit to Chris. He wrote some real cool, jazzy music that I could never have thought up.
What do you hope people will take away from ‘Meet Me at Vie’s’?
Dawn: I hope they leave with a better understanding of Vancouver’s history, and with the knowledge that black communities have always been thriving and building, despite the containers that they get put into. Through racism, white supremacy, and big business, the neighbourhood was eventually destroyed, but Hogan’s Alley was a thriving community in its time. And I hope people feel a sense of pride after seeing the show. Specifically for our black audience members, I hope they see themselves reflected in the story.
Krystle: I second all of that. I also hope that people get a sense of [pauses]… Ownership. And also curiosity. I think that when you tell a story about a subject and make it personal, that’s the ticket to sparking people’s interest and empathy. I hope people will be curious to go back and look into the history of Hogan’s Alley a little more. We cover a lot of ground: we talk about locals, celebrities, the destruction of the neighbourhood, all sorts of things. But we try to do it in a way that’s entertaining and easily digestible.
On the topic of late-night restaurants, where’s your go-to spot after playing an evening show?
Dawn: In my younger years, maybe I’d go to the Denny’s on Davie? And Duffin’s Donuts once in a while.
Krystle: I’d just say ‘my kitchen’ [laughs]. Leftovers from the fridge, probably sushi. I used to sing every Friday at the Belmont, and I also met my husband around the same time. So he’d come every Friday, and we’d go to McDonald’s on the way home. The 6 Piece Chicken Nugget Meal became the Friday night treat.
Once ‘Meet Me at Vie’s’ wraps up, where else can people catch you this summer?
Krystle: I’ll be playing a few out of town shows, including a Stevie Wonder show in Kamloops. Dawn and I also have another collaboration together at the end of May: The Soul Music Spectacular. It’s an Infidels Jazz production, and it’ll be on at the Rickshaw Theatre, May 30th!
‘Meet Me at Vie’s’ is presented by Infidels Jazz, and will be playing until May 2nd at the BMO Theatre Centre. Tickets are available here.