“I don’t want to become the Hazel McCallion of show business,” laughs Marlene Smith, “but I know I’ve got a few more good years in me.”

That’s why the veteran producer of the original 1985 Toronto version of Cats is jumping back into the Elgin-Winter Garden complex, the same playpen where she had such a good time 29 years ago, helping Toronto start its love affair with mega-musicals.

Expect an announcement Tuesday that Nu Musical Theatricals (or NuMu) will present a series of shows at the Yonge St. theatre.

First up will be a production of Buddy — the Buddy Holly Story, scheduled to open in October with a cast yet to be announced.

NuMu was founded last year by Smith and her partners Geoffrey Smith (her son), David Galpern and Charles Roy. They presented an all-Canadian production of Cats at the Panasonic Theatre that ran successfully through the summer. That got them all thinking about working together on a more permanent basis.

“I did miss it,” says Smith, of her decades as a producer, “but it’s also because there are so many amazing young talents out there and there wasn’t enough work for them to audition for.”

Smith has always been known for her devotion to young Canadian talent, ever since the days she was the company manager for the unforgettable 1972 production of Godspell that brought names like Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Victor Garber, Andrea Martin and Gilda Radner to stardom.

After that, she produced a series of long-running cabaret musicals in city venues that no longer exist (The Teller’s Cage, The Ports, Old Angelo’s, The Dell).

Cats was her introduction to the big time. It made her a logical candidate when the province needed someone to program shows in the new Elgin/Winter Garden Theatre.

Smith and her partner, Ernie Rubenstein, opened The Wizard of Oz in the Elgin and Side by Side by Sondheim in the Winter Garden in late 1989, but things never really clicked and the pair soon departed.

But, by her own admission, Smith “never really left the theatre.” When presented with a chance “to get things going again and get some wonderful musical theatre people back into action,” she couldn’t say no.

The rest of the playbill for NuMu will be announced shortly but, considering Roy’s longtime involvement with Ontario’s Classical Theatre Project, you can rest assured that Shakespeare as well as Sondheim will share the stage.

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Smith is worried about the lack of entrepreneurial skill among the younger generation, saying “nobody knows how to produce these days,” but she plans to see that situation remedied.

“I’m just going to do what has to be done,” she says.