Ross Petty helped grow the art of pantomime in Canada. Now, his influential show hits the stage once more

By Aisling Murphy | CBC Arts

Friday, December 20th. 2024

When theatre producer Ross Petty announced his retirement from his annual holiday pantomime in 2022, he left a gaping hole in Canadian theatre. The “Petty panto,” as it was lovingly known by Toronto theatre fans of all ages, was a tradition — a yearly excuse to celebrate all things silly with big dance numbers and naughty innuendos.

Thanks to Canadian Stage, the pantomime is back in Toronto this year, with Petty serving as executive producer emeritus. 

Over the last few decades, holiday pantos have cropped up across Canada, each one a little different in terms of how they pay homage to their respective communities. Most of them hold fast to the form’s usual features — audience participation, singalong dance numbers and melodramatic conflicts — and most theatre artists credit Petty for kick-starting the panto trend in Canada.

What is a pantomime?

A pantomime is a family-friendly musical typically produced in the lead-up to Christmas, although the show seldom touches on religious or holiday themes. What typically makes pantomime fun for all ages is the element of audience participation — spectators are encouraged to boo the villain, cheer for the hero and sing along to their favourite pop songs, which are often woven into the musical score of the show.

Simon Sladen, senior curator of modern and contemporary theatre and performance at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, has dedicated his career to researching the phenomenon of pantomime. In 2013, he launched the National Database of Pantomime Performance, enabling researchers to track every professional pantomime in the U.K. and beyond.

“Pantomimes are often considered popular art, something that isn’t in the same cultural hierarchy as, say, Shakespeare,” Sladen tells CBC Arts. “But there’s no reason for that apart from cultural snobbery. Pantomime is a very important part of British Christmas. It’s a form that’s survived centuries, and it’s enjoyed by millions of people in the U.K. each year.”

Sladen includes Petty in a group of theatre creators who helped to usher pantomime beyond the British Isles, and says Petty’s work has helped to keep panto alive in Canada.

“He’s a great performer,” says Sladen. “His villainy is just amazing. A Ross Petty panto is anarchic and eccentric, and those are things I love in a panto. They’re cartoony, and they have interesting morals in them. They’re not constrained by expectations of tradition, which can happen a bit here in the U.K. They don’t have the same cultural straitjacket. They can present panto as a bonkers British genre but with its own spin, which I think is fantastic.”

Reviving the Ross Petty panto in 2024

Brendan Healy, artistic director of Canadian Stage, says taking the panto under his company’s wing was an easy decision. Canadian Stage is famous for its Dream in High Park summer theatre series, and according to Healy, there was interest in finding a family-friendly winter counterpart to the annual Shakespeare tradition.

“When Ross was retiring in 2022, we thought there was an opportunity for us to pick up the panto and make that our family winter offering,” he says. “I have a very strong belief that Canadian Stage needs to do its part in fostering the next generation of theatregoers, and provide opportunities for younger people to experience live theatre. Dream in High Park does that, but Ross has introduced literally thousands upon thousands of children to theatre. That’s what plants the seed for a lifetime of interest in the art form.”

Petty vividly remembers the first call he got from Canadian Stage, during which it became clear both to him and the new producers: “The panto cannot die after 27 years.”

“I’m delighted that Canadian Stage came forward with this proposal,” he says. As executive producer emeritus, Petty contributed a few of his relationships in advertising and sponsorships, and he sat in on a few rehearsals, but for the most part, he has been hands-off with this production. That’s part of his “running off into the sunset” dream of retirement, he says.

“The whole creative team is stellar — Ted Dykstra has directed five of the pantos in the past, and music director Mark Camilleri has done them for several years. I trusted each member of this team implicitly.” 

On Dec. 11, at Toronto’s Winter Garden Theatre, the Ross Petty panto officially returned with a deliciously campy adaptation of The Wizard of Oz. Playwright Matt Murray, who previously wrote six of Petty’s pantos, handled the pen once more for this milestone outing. And while, yes, this year’s choice of story was partly inspired by the recent film adaptation of Wicked, there’s more nuance to it than just that.

“I’m really feeling the sense that people genuinely missed this tradition,” Murray says. “I think people are really craving it. It’s been very exciting to feel the energy of getting this opportunity to bring this tradition back.

“We knew people would be loving Oz right now and wanting more of it,” he continues. “The enthusiasm is there. The show is really hitting the zeitgeist, and that’s really fun.”

Panto beyond Toronto

The Canadian panto craze extends far beyond Toronto. Around the GTA, loads of regional theatres stage annual pantomimes — inspired, of course, by Petty — but further adrift, smaller communities have taken the art form and made it their own.

Vancouver’s East Van Panto is a beloved local tradition that infuses pantomime with a sense of social justice. This year’s story, Robin Hood, comments on gentrification, and according to co-writer Jiv Parasram, is “a lot more politically engaged” than some of the other theatre happening in Vancouver.

“It borrows the conventions of the traditional British panto, but has really morphed into its own thing,” says fellow co-writer Christine Quintana. “East Vancouver is a very artist-heavy, counterculture-heavy community.”

“I’m familiar with the Petty pantos from when I lived in Toronto,” says Parasram. “They’ll touch on politics, but it’s usually pretty light. The East Van Panto lives more in the political satire realm, and we really leaned into that this year.” According to Parasram and Quintana, their panto is loaded with esoteric local references, like an infamously weird sign warning hikers of deep mud at Trout Lake, which makes an appearance in the show.

“That kind of hyper-specific reference is really fun for us,” says Parasram. “It’s awesome to get to pay tribute and mythologize places that are real and that mean something.”

In southwestern Ontario, Lighthouse Festival Theatre is one of several companies with an annual pantomime. The company has theatres in two cities — Port Dover and Port Colborne — and the yearly panto is a highlight of their programming, which is otherwise concentrated in the summer months.

“Pantomime is such a participatory style of theatre,” says artistic director Jane Spence. This year, Lighthouse produced a panto-fied take on Cinderella. “We had a performance for 300 elementary school kids and it was magical. I’ve never seen an audience so engaged. They were all just ready to boo and cheer, and they sang along with some of the songs. It was such a beautiful moment — there was not one cellphone on in the whole audience. 

“Everyone was just engaged, and there was so much excitement,” she continues. “I thought, ‘This is how you inspire the next generation of theatre-goers.'”

Aisling Murphy is a Toronto-based writer and editor. She is the Senior Editor of Intermission Magazine, and has previously written for the Toronto Star and CP24. She is the incoming Theatre Reporter for The Globe and Mail.