Tag: IntermissionMagazine

With the holiday season upon us, it’s panto-mania for Canadian theatre (CBC Arts)

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. 

The Wizard of Oz: The Toto-ly Awesome Family Musical by Canadian Stage at the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatres Centre in Toronto. (Dahlia Katz)

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.

The Wizard of Oz: The Toto-ly Awesome Family Musical by Canadian Stage at the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatres Centre in Toronto. (Dahlia Katz)

“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.”

The Wizard of Oz: The Toto-ly Awesome Family Musical by Canadian Stage at the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatres Centre in Toronto. (Dahlia Katz)

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.” 

The Wizard of Oz: The Toto-ly Awesome Family Musical by Canadian Stage at the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatres Centre in Toronto. (Dahlia Katz)

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 outingAnd 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.

East Van Panto Robin Hood by Theatre Replacement at the York Theatre in Vancouver. (Emily Cooper)

“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.”

Cinderella by Lighthouse Festival Theatre in Port Colborne, Ont. and Port Dover, Ont. (Lighthouse Festival Theatre )

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.

Lighthouse Festival’s holiday pantomime returns for a second year of family-friendly fun (Intermission Magazine)

The Cast & Crew of Cinderella – The Panto! at Lighthouse Festival

By Nathaniel Hanula-James | Intermission Magazine

Wednesday, November 6, 2024


Last year, Southern Ontario’s Lighthouse Festival brought an old tradition to a whole new audience: A holiday pantomime. The risk paid off. 

“It was like baby turtles to the sea,” said Jonathan Ellul, the director of 2023’s panto Jack and the Beanstalk, in an interview. Ellul returns to Lighthouse this fall to helm 2024’s panto, Cinderella.

“About 10 minutes in, everyone was right on board opening night,” he continued. “During the reception, a man came up to me. He was a dad with little kids, and I could see that his parents were with him too.

“He took my hand and thanked me,” said Ellul, “because [his family] had just emigrated from England, [where the panto tradition originated], and in his mind he’d accepted that they weren’t going to see any more pantos. He welled up with tears and told me, ‘To see my kids and my parents sitting together having a wonderful time has made my whole Christmas.’ So that was my personal win.”

“I was born in England,” said Jane Spence, Lighthouse Festival’s new artistic director, in a separate interview. “When we came to Canada, [pantomime] was a tradition my mother sought out. It was magical, because I’d never gone to theatre where you could interact before.” 

Concept art for this year’s pantomime gives a sneak peek of what audiences can expect this holiday season. Photo courtesy of Lighthouse Festival Theatre.

As per panto tradition, Cinderella will feature audience call-and-response, topical zingers, and loving nods to the local community, framed by an irreverent retelling of a classic fairytale. Jack and the Beanstalk’s playwright, Ken MacDougall, will once again pen the script for the show.

“Ken is brilliant,” said Ellul. “He’s very funny, and if he knows the actors [in the panto] — if he’s seen their work, or he’s worked with them — you can actually hear their voices in the lines he gives them.”  

Like its predecessor, Cinderella will feature an all-star cast whose comic chops fit the panto tradition like custom-made glass slippers. The ensemble includes Helen Belay (Come Home: The Legend of Daddy Hall) as Prince Charming, Raquel Duffy (Appropriate) as the Fairy Godmother, and Katie Edwards (Jack in the Beanstalk) as Cinderella. Sal Figliomeni — who played last year’s pantomime dame — and Allan Cooke will play Minnie and Brobby, Cinderella’s stepsisters. 

There to highlight the actors’ tomfoolery is drummer, singer, and instrumentalist Brad Hart, who recently released his first solo album, Notes Like Ghosts. Hart will play live on stage and “is going to become a kind of commenter on the show,” said Ellul. “My hope is, as the show goes on, he’ll become more and more involved until he’s practically a full character: the reluctant drummer who gets wound up in the chaos.” 

Ellul first became involved with panto as a young actor, via the Stirling Festival Theatre in Hastings County, Ontario. In 1998, Stirling’s then-artistic director and founder Caroline Smith hired Ellul, as well as MacDougall, to perform in Stirling’s own version of Jack and the Beanstalk. Ellul continued performing in pantos at Stirling Festival into the 2000s, as well as in Ross Petty’s touring production of Aladdin in 2006.

“Having done pantos myself, I know that [the best] ideas come out of rehearsal, where the actors are just playing,” Ellul said. “Part of directing is reminding myself to graciously accept new ideas and willingly let go of what I’d had in mind.” 

In her interview, Spence noted that Ellul’s comic prowess as an actor makes him the perfect match for panto’s generous spirit. “I had the pleasure of watching Jonathan when he did The Foursome [by Norm Foster] here,” she said. “He was so funny that, several times during the show, the other actors had to wait for the audience to stop laughing long enough to say the next line. I think he’s a comedic genius.”

Spence’s predecessor, Derek Ritschel, was the driving force behind bringing panto to Lighthouse. It was Ritschel who asked Ellul to direct Jack and the Beanstalk, in another risk that more than paid off: Although Ellul is a veteran actor, last year’s pantomime was his first experience directing.  

“It was really not even on my radar,” said Ellul. When Ritschel asked, “‘Would you consider directing?’ I was like, ‘Hell yes.’ The words just came out of my mouth. [I thought,] I can help anybody feel confident and tell a story in that style. That’s my comfort zone, my wheelhouse.”

Reflecting on it now, “I’ve been directing for a long time in other ways,” shared Ellul, who also works as a photographer and portrait artist.  “I really want to make people feel confident and comfortable in front of the camera.””

Still, “it was Derek who helped bring [directing] to the surface in me,” Ellul said. “I didn’t realize he saw me as a leader. I’m grateful for the opportunity to learn.”

Ellul remembered that Ritschel told him, “‘You don’t have to be the director with all the decisions made ahead of time. Think of yourself as the extra artist in the room, keeping everyone safe  and keeping fun at the centre, at the heart.’ That was the best advice I’ve ever heard.”

Cinderella runs at the Lighthouse Theatre in Port Dover November 28 to December 8, and at the Roselawn Theatre in Port Colborne December 12 to 15. Tickets are available here


Nathaniel Hanula-James is a multidisciplinary theatre artist who has worked across Canada as a dramaturg, playwright, performer, and administrator.

Lighthouse Festival Theatre announces 2025 season, curated by incoming artistic director Jane Spence (Intermission Magazine)

By Aisling Murphy | Intermission Magazine

Friday, August 30, 2024

Lighthouse Festival Theatre, located in Port Dover and Port Colborne, has announced its jam-packed 2025 summer season.

Curated by incoming artistic director Jane Spence, the season will feature a blend of genres, including two plays by fan favourite playwright Norm Foster.

“I am absolutely thrilled to join Lighthouse Festival as the new artistic director,” said Spence in a press release. “This theatre has a rich history of bringing exceptional performances to our communities, and I can’t wait to be a part of that tradition. Our 2025 season is focused on making people laugh, and I believe that laughter is a universal language that brings us together, helps us find joy, and creates unforgettable memories.”

The season will open with The New Canadian Curling Club by Mark Crawford, a heartwarming, humorous story about an unlikely group of characters coming together to learn the art of curling.

Next up is The Hound of the Baskervilles by Steven Canny and John Nicholson. The play is billed as a comedic adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic mysteries, adding a farcical twist to the world of Sherlock Holmes.

Third in the season is Hidden Treasures by Norm Foster. This show is unique for its two-play structure — each act is its own one-act play, and both halves are performed by the same cast.

After Hidden Treasures is Pinkerton Comes to Prospecta world premiere by playwright Jamie Williams. This western-themed comedy elevates the genre’s tropes to a new level, and is sure to provoke laughs.

Rounding out the season is another Foster classic, Here on the Flight Path, about the quirky inhabitants of a Toronto apartment building.

Single tickets will be on sale starting November 18, with subscription renewals beginning in early September. For more information about the 2025 season, visit the Lighthouse Festival Theatre website


Aisling Murphy is Intermission’s senior editor and an award-winning arts journalist with bylines including the Toronto Star, Globe & Mail, CBC Arts, CTV News Toronto, and Maclean’s. She likes British playwright Sarah Kane, most songs by Taylor Swift, and her cats, Fig and June. She was a 2024 fellow at the National Critics Institute in Waterford, CT.

REVIEW: Sparks fly in Norm Foster’s uproarious Lakefront (Intermission Magazine)

By Janine Marley | Intermission Magazine

Thursday, August 29, 2024

Ever get the feeling you’ve lost your moxie? 

Well, retirees Christina and Robert were feeling that way when they met each other at a wedding a few weeks ago. During the reception, their intoxicated selves concocted an idea to help them get over their respective anxieties. Renting a lakefront cabin seemed like a great idea at the time — but now that they’re sober, they have to go through with it. 

Norm Foster has written a hilarious, truthful story about getting your groove back — or realizing you never lost it at all —  with his new play Lakefront. In its world premiere directed by Jeffrey Wetsch at Lighthouse Festival Theatre, Lakefront is not only a love letter to Canada, but also a love letter to love. 

The premise of the play is simple: Christina (Melodee Finlay) and Robert (Ralph Small) have booked a cabin together at the erroneously named Lakefront Cabins to see if spending a night or two together will help them find their mojo again. Upon arrival, they meet Duane (Derek Ritschel, also the artistic director of Lighthouse Festival Theatre), who’s watching over the cabins for the week while his parents are on vacation. Duane has a habit of popping in at precisely the wrong time, punctuating Robert and Christina’s most intimate moments with a clunky greeting or non-sequitur. But as Robert and Christina open up and start trusting each other, we see the beginning of an interpersonal bond that can survive these grating interruptions.

Foster’s writing is full of wit and humour, as audiences across Canada have come to know and love. With that in mind, Lakefront has a decidedly small-town Ontario flair to it. Jokes about Winnipeg in the winter, curling, and the unyielding boredom of children’s hockey make Lakefront feel like home. From Duane’s habit of barging into the cabin unannounced to the inevitable rush of patrons at the local restaurant on “fruit cup Friday,” Lakefront embraces all the clichés of rural life in the best way possible. It’s fitting that the first run of Lakefront is taking place in Port Dover and Port Colborne, both beautiful small communities that resemble the one in the text. (Except, of course, these ports actually have stunning lakefront views.)

Eric Bunnell’s set design fully embodies the rustic charm of Foster’s script. The warmth of the wooden cabin and stone hearth emanates against the bare, snow-covered trees surrounding the cottage. The trees themselves are unique, too, at times looking more like sign posts than tree branches, and yet their wooden construction aesthetically complements the rest of the set. Kevin Fraser’s lighting, as well, bathes the set in lovely, while the plaid couch and chair add a tasteful amount of Canadiana to the set, matched by the Buffalo checks of Duane’s costumes (designed by Alex Amini). 

Finlay and Small have impeccable chemistry as Christina and Robert. Lakefront starts out steeped in first date awkwardness, complete with delicious tension that ebbs and flows throughout the first act of the play. At the matinee I attended, Small’s delivery of Robert’s more anxious moments caused belly laughs to echo through the theatre; for the first hour or so, Robert is clearly trying so hard to impress Christina, yet none of his tactics seem to work. But as Robert and Christina open up to one another, Finlay gets to relish some of Foster’s funnier one-liners and quips, which when I attended made Small burst out into real laughter several times, adding some real-life zip to Foster’s prescribed dialogue. 

However, it’s Ritschel’s comedic timing that steals the show. Duane has a sweet, slightly oblivious demeanour to his intrusions that makes him immediately loveable — with just a dash of chaos and irritation. 

As a theatre critic based in Toronto and not often exposed to Foster’s work, I found it inspiring to get to spend an afternoon with Canada’s most-programmed playwright — his plays are a pointed reminder that getting older doesn’t have to mean that you’re getting boring or undesirable. There are so many assumptions and fears around aging which have been perpetuated throughout our society, and time and again, Foster’s work proves just how incorrect those preconceptions are. Bring your friend, lover, or maybe even a total stranger, grab your silk pajamas, and settle in for a night of laughs at Lakefront


Lakefront runs in Port Dover until September 7 and in Port Colborne from September 11-22. Tickets are available here.

Intermission reviews are independent and unrelated to Intermission’s partnered content. Learn more about Intermission’s partnership model here.


Janine Marley is an independent theatre reviewer born in Kingsville, Ontario and has been a Torontonian since November 2020. She holds Honours BA and MA Degrees from the University of Windsor in English Language and Literature with her studies primarily focused on theatre. She began acting at a young age and continued acting in productions until 2018. She started her blog, A View from the Box, as a personal project to share her passion for theatre.

REVIEW: Lakefront At The Lighthouse Theatre (Ontario Stage)

By Kelly Monaghan | Ontario Stage

Wednesday, August 28, 2024

With Lakefront, now enjoying it’s world premiere at Port Dover’s Lighthouse Festival Theatre, the prolific Norm Foster is proving that oldsters can be just as romantic – and funny – as the younger couples he has been writing about for decades.

“Write what you know” is timeless advice for writers, so it’s perhaps no surprise that as he himself ages Foster is creating more main characters who are in or approaching their “golden years.” His recent Whit’s End had great fun with a widower’s clumsy attempt to introduce his new love interest to his adult children.

Lakefront is even better and the central characters even older.

As the play opens, an older couple, Christina (Melodee Finlay) and Robert (Ralph Small), are being shown into their room at a modest country resort, the Lakefront of the title, by Duane (Derek Ritschel), the goofy son of the resort’s owners who are on holiday.

Christina and Robert are both single; she divorced, he dumped by a faithless wife. They met at a wedding at which the happy couples being united in holy matrimony had been married and divorced several times. Foster seems to be alerting us that relationships can be an iffy proposition.

During a boozy conversation at the reception, they came round to pondering the thorny question of whether folks at their age (she 68 and he 70) could still be attractive to the opposite sex. They decided to find out.

And so here they are at Lakefront resort in February. Now sober, they are bit apprehensive as to whether or not this was such a great idea.

For two hours Foster has a great deal of fun helping them find out.

Robert is especially concerned about … you know … the “man thing.” Christina says she doesn’t really care about sex.

But it isn’t too long before the too-thin walls of their Lakefront cottage are shaking with Christina’s moans and shrieks as Robert demonstrates his prowess at giving her what every women secretly wants – a really great foot massage.

And so it goes as Lakefront meanders around the will-they-won’t-they question, which in true Foster fashion is neatly and quite satisfactorily answered by play’s end.

Their courtship, if that’s what we can call it, is regularly interrupted by visits from Duane, one of Foster’s most inspired and wildly comic creations. Duane develops a definite attraction to Christina that would be kinda icky if it wasn’t so innocently inane.

Director Jeffrey Wetsch has orchestrated all of this admirably and drawn very funny and, yes, touching performances from his two leads. Finlay makes Christina an alluring mixture of hesitancy and self-assurance. The way she needles Robert about what she sees as his silly concerns about “the man thing” is delightful.

For his part, Small brings a quiet decency to his portrayal of Robert as he frets over his kissing technique. Refreshingly, no “intimacy coach” is credited.

Ritschel, whose day job is being artistic director of the Lighthouse Theatre, damn near steals the show as Duane. He’s hysterical.

Set designer Eric Bunnell has provided what struck me as a photographic reproduction of a similar lakefront cabin on Manitoulin Island where I once stayed. It’s perfect. Costume designer Alex Amini, who has been doing such sterling work at the Foster Festival this year, has created wonderfully witty costumes. Where on earth did she find Robert’s silk pajamas?

Lakefront is another winner from the fertile pen of Norm Foster and well worth the schlep to the shores of Lake Erie. If you can’t make it I have no doubt that Lakefront, like most of Foster’s work, will have an extensive afterlife.

Foster is often called “Canada’s Neil Simon.” The salient difference is that Simon’s natural milieu was Broadway. Why, pray tell, hasn’t Foster been taken up by the giants of Canadian theatre?

Lakefront continues at the Lighthouse Festival Theatre in Port Dover through September 7, 2024. It then transfers to Lighthouse’s Roselawn Theatre in Port Colborne, ON, from September 11 to 22, 2024. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit the Lighthouse Festival Theatre website.


REVIEW: Robyn’s Review of The Sweet Delilah Swim Club

By Robyn Beazley | Robyn’s Review

Wednesday, July 31, 2024

Last Thursday I went to the Opening Night performance of The Sweet Delilah Swim Club, directed by Lighthouse Festival’s new Artistic Director Jane Spence and like everyone else in the audience- thoroughly enjoyed it!

This show, about five friends whose connection dates back to their days as college swim team champions, opens with a set that instantly makes you feel like you’re at a quaint little cottage on the beach.

While it takes place on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, and the women’s southern accents leave no doubt on where it is set, the story is one that will resonate with anyone anywhere who has had a friendship that spans across different parts of their lifetime.

Written by Jones Hope Wooten (Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope, and Jamie Wooten), who are known for being creators of strong female roles and packing their scripts with funny situations and witty repartee, this show follows Sheree, Lexie, Dinah, Jeri, and Vernadette over the course of a few decades during their annual girls trip each August to The Sweet Delilah cottage. The storyline skips a few years here and there but the audience is brought up to speed every time the five women reunite again and share laughter, gossip, advice, and empathy.

The actors nail their respective characters and every witty one-liner or exchange between them, having to pause often for the laughter to die down before they hit us with the next one. Each character’s personalities were highlighted from the hairstyles they wore right down to the outfits they appeared in for each scene.

While each of these women is strikingly different, they accept each other just as they are (albeit not without a few zingers thrown around), and they support each other as they go through the usual life experiences with husbands, children, careers, health, big life changes and a plethora of other relatable milestones. And despite their differences, they all have one thing in common – their genuine love for each other that withstands the test of time and some trials and tribulations over those years.

While this is a comedy it also has its heart touching moments as the women support one another through thick and thin, but the actors never leave room for the audience to feel down for longer than a beat, as they quickly remind us all that even during the worst of times, our friends are the ones we can always lean on.

The signature drink for this show was the Lexie’s Blueberry Sangria – and the reasoning for the name becomes clear in the first couple minutes of the show. As for the choice of sangria, it is the perfect representation of the medley of characters that combine to make up the Sweet Delilah Swim Team, resulting in a drink that is sweet, but with a sassy little kick to it. Just like the women we get to know throughout the show.

The Opening Night celebrations were topped off with a delicious finger foods buffet prepared by Debbie Moffatt Catering and music by Jesse Murphy and Ian Brammall as patrons toasted another great show with champagne and post-show chatter.

I 10/10 recommend that you go see this show, even better if it’s with one of your own best friends!

This show is running in Port Dover until August 10th and then it moves to Port Colborne from the 14th to the 25th.

Get your tickets here: https://lighthousetheatre.com/event/sweet-delilah-swim-club/

REVIEW: Lighthouse Theatre brings haunting edge to Mary’s Wedding (Intermission Magazine)

Evelyn Wiebe & Daniel Reale in Lighthouse Festival’s 2024 production of Mary’s Wedding.

By Mae Smith | Intermission Magazine

Wednesday, July 10, 2024

When I walked the main street of Port Dover ahead of the opening of Mary Wedding’s, happy beachgoers dawdling around me, there was no way I could have predicted that I would be desperately stifling tears in a public washroom just mere hours later.

Indeed, the Lighthouse Festival’s production of Stephen Massicotte’s historical romance is an emotional heavy hitter, swinging between endearing meet-cutes and gut-wrenching loss and leaving a chorus of sniffles and whimpers bouncing off of the more than 100-year-old walls.

Set between 1914 and 1920 in the dream of the titular Mary (played by Evelyn Wiebe) before her titular wedding, we follow her subconscious through dreams of her and her love, the “dirty farm boy” Charlie (played by Daniel Reale). We meet Mary and Charlie in a barn where she soothes his fear of an ongoing thunderstorm with poetry (reciting Alfred Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade”), weaving then through their secret courting under the eye of Mary’s domineering but never-seen mother, to Charlie’s service as a Canadian trooper in the First World War. However, as dreams do, the plot veers into non-linearity as Mary’s fears and her knowledge of the future bleed into the fabric of her memories.

Despite jumping quickly between the years, Reale and Wiebe aptly execute the switches from hopeful, innocent kids in love to the worn, aged demeanor of veterans and those who grieve them. The performances complement the text itself, which juxtaposes Massicotte’s prose against Tennyson’s poems. Where Tennyson’s words present romanticized versions of war and heartache (Mary raves about “The Lady of Shalott”), Massicotte poetically dismantles the naive visions of life the characters get from Tennyson. Charlie never looks more boyish than when he excitedly tells Mary his plans to enlist and fight like in The Charge of the Light Brigade to then — not more than 10 minutes later (or earlier?) — be holding the dying body of his sergeant (also played by Wiebe, keeping her involved in war scenes and lending a visual reference for the way Charlie sees Mary in everything, everywhere which is a favoured expression in the text for love and grief). 

Derek Ritschel’s direction allows for a lot of pauses and breathing room that emphasizes the slow, dreamy quality of key emotional moments. At some points, however, I found the energy jumped too fast. When I attended, other audience members and I startled in our seats more than once. Within the first few minutes of Mary’s appearance on stage, she yells at Charlie in a manner akin to the precog Agatha screaming at Tom Cruise to run in Minority Report. Such unsettling moments can have their purpose, but it wasn’t always clear to me what that purpose was. I would have said the show had reached a climax too soon if not for Wiebe’s absolutely heartbreaking performance in her final memories with Charlie, sparking the aforementioned weeping.

Alex Amini’s modest costume design helps the performances remain free from distractions; frequent changes might have imposed on actors needing to travel through time and space. Mary wears a plain white nightgown even when standing in for Charlie’s sergeant, while Charlie wears high-waisted trousers with suspenders over a white shirt. The only change in costume happens when Charlie repeatedly swaps between jacket or and no-jacket to indicate before the war and during. 

A quick Google Image search will tell you this is not a particularly unique design for the play, but there are still small details that emphasize youth when necessary (like Mary’s high neckline and long sleeves) and possess a utilitarian quality for time-jumping (like Charlie’s leg wraps) which differentiate Amini’s take on the characters’ looks.

William Chesney’s set design, a collection of tilted platforms and wooden support beams encapsulating Mary’s home and the inside of an old barn, has a similar multipurpose nature that provides a nice physical playground for action. Shorter wooden supports downstage function as the railing of an ocean liner, as horses’ tethers, and even as horses for the actors to mount and ride. The design does seem to miss one opportunity in embracing a blended, surreal look that embodies both home and overseas. The set, though minimal, remains firmly rooted in the Canadian homestead opting more to be ignored during war scenes.

While I’ve called Mary’s Wedding a romance, as I find Mary and Charlie’s connection to be the best part and what makes the ending so powerful (along with Wiebe’s performance), Massicotte’s use of real Canadian military history grounds the story and elevates the genre. Charlie’s sergeant is based on a real Canadian soldier, Gordon Flowerdew, who led the real-life charge we see portrayed and was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross. The Lighthouse Festival has included a write-up on Flowerdew in the lobby and the program, helping the audience picture the characters in the real world.

Mary and Charlie may be fictional characters and their story dramatically enhanced but there is no doubt countless others have experienced and are experiencing similar tragedies. Just as Mary soothes Charlie with a meditative use of poetry, Mary’s Wedding ends on a moving mantra for the grief-stricken. Mary and Charlie tell us it’s okay to remember those you loved in the past and it’s okay to remember them a little less as you make more memories in the present. If you, like me, enjoy touching tales of love and loss, then you’ll be happy you saw Mary’s Wedding, even if you leave in tears.


You can learn more about Mary’s Wedding here.


Intermission reviews are independent and unrelated to Intermission’s partnered content. Learn more about Intermission’s partnership model here.

Mae Smith is a former associate editor for Intermission Magazine. Outside of theatre, she is a crafter and a Pisces.

Mary’s Wedding promises to pack an emotional punch at Lighthouse Festival Theatre (Intermission Magazine)

By Nathaniel Hanula-James | Intermission Magazine

Friday, June 21, 2024

This summer, Lighthouse Festival’s audiences are advised to BYOK — Bring Your Own Kleenex. 

They’ll need them for Mary’s Wedding, which begins previews at the Lighthouse Theatre in Port Dover on July 3. Written by Stephen Massicotte and first produced by Alberta Theatre Projects in 2002, Mary’s Wedding transports audiences to the Canadian prairies of the early 20th century, where a young woman named Mary Chalmers, seeking shelter from a thunderstorm in a barn, stumbles upon a young man named Charles Edwards and has her world turned upside down. The ensuing love story, both epic and intimate, spans continents as Charlie sails off to fight in the trenches of the First World War. 

“I liken it more to poetry than I do to your standard text of a play,” said Derek Ritschel, the director of Mary’s Wedding and the artistic director of Lighthouse Festival, in an interview. “Sometimes when a writer writes a show they have all the right ideas, but the rhythm of the lines just doesn’t work. [Mary’s Wedding] is the opposite. It’s the right amount of syllables. It’s the right amount of pace. The scenes change just at the right time. It is, to me, the perfect Canadian play.”

The last time Lighthouse mounted a production of Mary’s Wedding in 2005, Ritschel played the role of Charlie. As the director of this new production, he brings not only a profound understanding of the text but a desire to lean into the sweeping, cinematic nature of the play’s love story.

“I get accused of directing films for the stage all the time,” joked Ritschel. “My style has always been very cinematic.” One example is Ritschel’s vision for the play’s opening, created in collaboration with sound designer Tim Lindsay. “There’s a sequence at the top of the show where we’re going to have audio from the Vietnam War, the Korean War, then World War Two, [then World War One],” explained Ritschel, “to the point where, at the end of the opening sequence, all we’re hearing is the wind in the wheat. We want to slow the audience down to [the world of] the prairies in 1916.”


Ritschel also plans to play with montage and slow motion as a way to capture Charlie’s terrifying experiences at the front.

“What would have been a brief moment in real time, I’m going to slow right down,” Ritschel said. “I’m creating these time pockets.” Ritschel compared the slow motion quality he’s aiming for to his experience of being in a car accident. “The car that drove into me — it took all of 1.4 seconds,” he shared, “but the amount of thought that went through my head in that blip is what I’m going for with Charlie and Mary. The train of events in their storyline is very quick, so I’m trying to create spaces where we can actually breathe and [sit with] thought and memory and love.”

Ritschel’s filmic approach to Mary’s Wedding doesn’t equal hyper-realism. On the contrary, Ritschel wants to embrace the opportunities for play and imagination that theatre offers as a medium. “We’ve gone uber-dream,” he said. “Nothing is what it seems to be. Charlie doesn’t have a gun in our show. It’s a broom.”

At the heart of this production are two incredible emerging actors: Daniel Reale (Charlie) and Evelyn Wiebe (Mary). This is Ritschel’s first time collaborating with both performers.

“There’s something thrilling for me to work with people I don’t know,” he said. “It makes me think about my words a little more, and how I’m delivering a thought. “I kind of hate the term ‘director.’ I like to think of myself as on the outside looking in for [actors] and watching their backs, and saying ‘here’s what I’m seeing.’ [Wiebe and Reale] are so open and so smart, and so willing to say ‘No, Derek, I think it’s this.’ I love it. It challenges me, and I love the energy of young actors and new people.”

Mary’s Wedding will be quite the tonal shift from Lighthouse’s current offering, the madcap mystery farce Murder at Ackerton Manor

Ackerton is nuts,” said Ritschel. “The characters are huge caricatures of [murder mystery] archetypes. It’s so absurd and fun and ridiculous. It’s very funny. Then [the audience is] going to get Mary’s Wedding, and it’s going to be the biggest 180 — which I’m loving. 

“We always do a show that has some serious heart and drama to it,” he continued. “I something refer to it as ‘the one for the heart.’”

How does Ritschel hope Mary’s Wedding might touch the hearts of Lighthouse audiences and subscribers? 

“I hope that people who see Lighthouse as a comedy house will give it a chance,” he said. “What these two fine actors are about to do is going to be something pretty spectacular.”


Mary’s Wedding runs July 3 – 20 at the Lighthouse Festival Theatre in Port Dover, and July 24 – August 4 at the Roselawn Theatre in Port Colborne. You can learn more about the show here.

REVIEW: Doris and Ivy in the Home explores aging with heart and humour (Intermission Magazine)

By Janine Marley | Intermission Magazine

Thursday, May 27, 2024

A university dean, a corrections officer, and a disgraced athlete walk into a retirement home…except there isn’t really a punchline. 

Instead, Norm Foster’s Doris and Ivy in the Home, directed by Jane Spence, is an exploration of friendship, love, and intimacy amidst the inevitable process of aging. Featuring Foster’s signature wit and delivering laugh after laugh, Doris and Ivy in the Home is an uproarious way to kick off Lighthouse Festival’s 45th season. 

Melanie Janzen as Doris & Brigitte Robinson as Iris in Lighthouse Festival’s 2024 summer season production of Norm Foster’s Doris and Ivy in the Home.

Doris and Ivy in the Home takes three unlikely companions on a journey through illness, relationships, perhaps even some romance, and the occasional snoop on another senior couple who like to, uh, get busy in the garden. Doris is a former corrections officer with a tough exterior, Ivy is a former skier who fled to Canada after a career-ending run, and Arthur used to be a dean, but he prefers to think of himself as a teacher. Arthur only has eyes for Ivy, while Ivy is afraid to fall in love again after three failed marriages. After much meddling and the occasional heart-to-heart, the three end up totally inseparable as they settle into their new lives. 

Foster’s script proves why he’s such a mainstay of Canadian comedy; Doris and Ivy at the Home is one well-placed joke after another, with plenty of callbacks to previous quips as well. A striking element of the writing is that Arthur likes to make up little poems based on his friends’ conversations, essentially little limericks. They’re brilliant and witty, and they punctuate the text perfectly. This flourish takes the creativity of the work to a whole new level while also giving Arthur a unique, delightful quirk.

There’s also a very delicate balance between the light and dark elements of Foster’s play. The world delves into real issues while keeping the overall essence of the play lively and fun. Getting older is a prevalent source of anxiety for most people, and yet Foster doesn’t shy away from talking about the realities of getting cancer or arthritis, or any other number of ailments. However, this play also reinforces how those things don’t have to define us as we get older. Each of the three characters finds something, or someone, new to live for over the course of the play. Whether that’s love, or a grandchild, or finding your independence after a long, loveless marriage, they all find something new about themselves. The ability to change our lives over and over again, no matter what age we are, is part of the beauty of being human, and Doris and Ivy in the Home directly speaks to that humanity.

The cast of Doris and Ivy in the Home is a trio of veteran actors who deliver exceptional performances in this piece. Melanie Janzen gives a bold and animated performance as Doris. Her physicality so fully embodies her character, and I couldn’t help but be reminded of Katharine Hepburn as she’d brush back her bangs in her plaid shirt and capris. Playing opposite Janzen is Brigitte Robinson as Ivy, whose poise and elegance are a perfect foil to Doris’ brashness. Robinson gives Ivy a sweet, maternal nature while also showing a deeper, more troubled side to the character. Ian Deakin’s Arthur is the final of these three musketeers. Deakin gives an earnest and heartfelt performance while leaning into his character’s idiosyncrasies. The chemistry and expertise of these three actors makes this production such a joy to watch; they’re so clearly having a good time with one another, and that radiates through their performances. 

William Chesney’s set design for the production is instantly recognizable as a retirement facility: the building’s large automated lobby doors, patio furniture, and gazebo create an ideal ambience for the play. Outdoor planters which change from bright flowers to hearty ferns help denote the passage of time, a choice that’s simple and effective. Alex Amini’s costumes wholly embody the characters; each has their own unique style that fits their personalities to a T. Ivy’s cardigans and flowy shirts, Doris’ colourful plaid shirt, and Arthur’s earth tones let us know immediately who these characters are. 

Doris and Ivy in the Home is a lighthearted story that’ll leave you looking forward to the future — whatever it may bring.


Doris and Ivy in the Home runs in Port Dover until June 8 before moving to Port Colborne from June 12-23. Tickets are available here.

Murder at Ackerton Manor pays homage to Agatha Christie with a puzzle box of laughs

By Nathaniel Hanula-James | Intermission Magazine

Thursday, May 16, 2024

“It’s Agatha Christie meets Mel Brooks.”

That’s playwright and director Steven Gallagher’s description of Murder at Ackerton Manor, a comedy homage to the mystery novels of Agatha Christie sure to leave audiences dying of laughter when it opens on June 12 at the Lighthouse Theatre in Port Dover. 

“It’s set in 1950 on a dark and stormy night in a remote mansion,” Gallagher explained in a Zoom interview. “Megan Cinel, our set designer, is so collaborative and such a brilliant young artist. She came up with this beautiful, Gothic English country home set that looks like somebody’s real [house]. The detective is a French-Belgian detective,” which Gallagher says is a reference to Christie’s iconic character Hercule Poirot. 

Murder at Ackerton Manor Maquette – Designed by Megan Cinel

“All the tropes are in there,” Gallagher assured. “There’s a German professor, a dowdy British monarchist, a Southern belle.” Naturally, a murder ensues, and the culprit must be found. 

Step aside, Kenneth Branagh — Ackerton Manor is far from a straightforward adaptation of Christie’s novels. Virtuoso actors Eliza-Jane Scott (Lighthouse’s Jack and the Beanstalk), Andrew Scanlon (Drayton’s Peter Pan: The Panto), and Adrian Shepherd-Gawinski (Tarragon’s The Hooves Belonged to the Deer) play a total of seven roles, with quick changes and ridiculous accents galore.

“[Scanlon,] who plays the murder victim, also plays the detective,” Gallagher said. “He goes back and forth in flashbacks between the two. Adrian Shepherd-Gawinski, who’s six-foot-five, plays the Southern belle. [The costume changes] aren’t just hats. The actors leave and come on in full drag, then they leave and they come back as the next character. It’s a full quick change: costumes, wigs, everything. It’s an extra layer of fun and skill for the actors to really dig into.”

Murder mysteries aren’t a joke to Gallagher: they’re what introduced him to theatre in the first place. “I grew up in Quebec, in a small English town called North Hatley,” Gallagher shared. “It’s sort of like Muskoka in Ontario, in that a lot of wealthy people come from Montreal and go to this small town. It’s one of the only places [in Quebec] that has an English-language summer stock theatre, called the Piggery.” 

Gallagher would go to the Piggery with his mother, and one of the first shows he ever saw there was a murder mystery. Murder at Ackerton Manor is “an homage to my mom,” Gallagher continued, “and those times we spent together watching — probably not great plays — but the shows that really got me into loving, and going to, the theatre.”

When he began work on Ackerton Manor, Gallagher dove back into the genre he adored as a child. 

“I brought back all the [Agatha Christie] books that I had from when I was a kid,” said Gallagher. “I also watched about 50 episodes of Agatha Christie’s Poirot, and got my hands on every single murder mystery I could find, even Stephen Sondheim’s [film] The Last of Sheila that he wrote with Anthony Perkins in the ‘70s. I would get all these locked-room mysteries, [a genre in which it seems impossible for a killer to have entered and left a crime scene,] and try to figure out what I could steal. What are the tropes that are all the way through these things?

“My poor partner was like, ‘Are you up again to one o’clock watching another Miss Marple?’,” Gallagher laughed. He shared that his all-time favourite Christie novel is The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, about the mysterious death of a wealthy widower. “It sort of turns the genre on its ear,” he teased. 

With its fusion of hijinks and homicide, Ackerton Manor is also a reimagining of not one, but two classic genres. Was blending farce and murder-mystery a difficult task for the playwright-director? 

“[Comedy and mystery] are similar,” explained Gallagher. “Both genres need to be tightly plotted and tightly written.” He added that he’s done some tinkering with the mystery at the heart of Ackerton Manor since the play’s premiere last year at the Bancroft Village Playhouse in Bancroft, Ont. “I’ve changed a couple of things plot-wise,” he said, “just to make sure that the [murderer] isn’t something that everybody guesses; or even if they do guess it, they might not know why until the end. People love that puzzle box.”

Gallagher hopes Murder at Ackerton Manor will encourage audience members to check out Lighthouse Festival’s other offerings, and demystify how much exciting theatre is happening throughout Ontario. 

“People who don’t even think they like theatre might come [see Ackerton] and say, ‘what else would I love to see?’,” he said. “Not just [a farce] but something more challenging too. We’re so used to seeing stuff in Toronto, which is amazing; but there’s a lot of other stuff happening in smaller spaces that people are flocking to.”


Murder at Ackerton Manor runs from June 12 to 29 at the Lighthouse Theatre in Port Dover, and July 3 to 14 at the Roselawn Theatre in Port Colborne. You can purchase tickets here.

‘Just bring your joy’: Inside Lighthouse Theatre’s new all-ages holiday pantomime

By Nathaniel Hanula-James | Intermission Magazine

Friday, November 24, 2023

“There are no mimes in pantomime.

So said Derek Ritschel, artistic director of Lighthouse Festival, in an interview with Intermission. Next week, the company opens Jack and the Beanstalk, a production Ritschel hopes will inaugurate a new tradition in the Port Dover and Port Colborne communities that Lighthouse serves: an annual holiday pantomime.

Although the pantomime — or “panto,” for short — is a thriving tradition with a long history, especially in the UK, it’s relatively little-known in Canada. According to Ritschel and Jack and the Beanstalk’s director Jonathan Ellul, the confusion of mime with pantomime is a common misconception. “I would say that 85 per cent of our audience has no idea what a panto is,” said Ritschel. 

But if a panto isn’t the Marcel Marceau-show, what the heck is it? 

“It’s as though the Muppets were going to do their version of Jack and the Beanstalk, but we got hold of the script,” said Ellul. “In terms of the humour, I always think panto must have been the precursor for all those Bugs Bunny cartoons. It’s a heightened telling of a familiar story, and it’s going to go every which way.” 

In other words, a pantomime takes a well-known fairy tale, throws it in a blender, and adds a healthy dose of zany hijinks. A traditional pantomime features a “pants role,” or a young male hero played by a woman, as well as a “pantomime dame” in drag. (Though the latter role is “more Miss Piggy than RuPaul,” said Ellul.) 

Panto hallmarks also include a good fairy, an over-the-top villain, original songs, a slapstick chase scene, contemporary references to the local community, and plenty of audience participation. (A classic example: yelling “THERE’S A MONSTER BEHIND YOU!” at a dim-witted character who just won’t take the audience’s advice.) Theatregoers can expect all this and more from Lighthouse Festival’s Jack and the Beanstalk.

If the experience sounds overwhelming, fear not. The level of panto knowledge required of a first-time audience member is none whatsoever. “We’re going to be setting up those things within the show,” Ellul assured me. “The audience member who’s never seen [a panto] will be able to fully partake.” 

There’s no question that Jack in the Beanstalk’s audiences will be in good hands: Ellul and Ritschel have assembled a dazzling team of Canadian comic talent. The cast of seven includes Eliza-Jane Scott as Jack, Cyrus Lane as the Villain, and Lori Nancy Kalamanski as the Fairy. “It’s been amazing for me to watch how they’re feeding off each other and coming together as an ensemble,” Ellul confided. “It’s been amazing to watch seven individual clowns develop.” 

According to Ellul, once playwright Ken MacDougall knew the casting, he tailored the script to fit the voices and talents of each actor. Even so, Ellul continued, “the script is very much a blueprint. There’s a setup and a joke, with the caveat that, if you’ve got a better one, let’s hear it in the rehearsal room. [The actors] didn’t waste a second.” 

On the day I spoke to Ellul and Ritschel, comic genius had struck twice. Eliza-Jane Scott had “realized that Jack didn’t have a moment where he kind of encapsulated everything,” Ellul told me. “So she went home and wrote a song based on a line that was in the script and summarized… everything that [Jack] had been through. She sent it as an email and I was listening…on my phone in a restaurant. I was laughing so hard I was in convulsions, all by myself — I looked like a crazy man in hysterics in the corner.”

Meanwhile, Ellul continued, Lane had completely rewritten the lyrics for the Villain’s big musical number, “and made it current and topical.” 

Pantomime’s embrace of improvisation means the show will keep transforming even after it opens. “The panto is like the ultimate playground for theatre,” said Ritschel. You get to interact with the audience and feed off [their] energy. If the audience gives you something that night, it’s going to be a different show.”

Unlike in more serious theat-ah, “the greatest gift that can happen is that somebody’s cellphone goes off in the audience,” Ellul added. “These [actors] will stop and say, ‘you better get it.’” 

Ellul and Ritschel took care to stress that all this fairy-tale funny business isn’t just for kids: this Jack and the Beanstalk has jokes for all ages. In fact, one of Panto’s superpowers is its ability to get every generation cackling. 

“I don’t think there’s anything more powerful than seeing three generations of a family laugh together in a theatre,” said Ritschel. “That doesn’t happen in other genres.”

Although this is the first time Lighthouse Theatre has staged a holiday panto, Ritschel and Ellul hope this is only the beginning of a new tradition. 

“The best thing I could hope for,” said Ellul, “is that people come out with a seed planted…‘Next year we’re bringing the grandparents, too.’” 

Panto “doesn’t care where you’re from,” insisted Ritschel. “[It] doesn’t care what other theatres you go to. It doesn’t care what your age is. Doesn’t care what your background is.”

So what does pantomime care about? 

“Joy,” said Ritschel. “Don’t worry about anything else. Just bring your joy.”


Jack and the Beanstalk opens at the Lighthouse Theatre in Port Dover on November 30 and runs until December 9. In Port Colborne, the production opens at the Roselawn Theatre on December 13 and runs until December 17. You can learn more about the show here.