July 15, 2026

By: Don Kearney-Bourque, Marketing & Communications Manager

Lighthouse Festival

Before the first actor steps onto the stage, before the first joke lands and before the audience begins unravelling the increasingly complicated plot of Secret Service, set designer Beckie Morris has already started telling the story.

The set is the audience’s introduction to the world of the play. It establishes where the characters are, hints at what might happen and creates an atmosphere that can be felt before a single line is spoken. For the world premiere of Ephraim Ellis’s fast-paced comedy at Lighthouse Festival, Morris was tasked with transforming the stage into an elegant and exclusive Italian restaurant filled with mystery, sophistication and more than a few secrets.

“The set is the audience’s first handshake with the story,” Morris explains. “Before anyone says a word, it tells them what kind of world they’ve entered.”

In Secret Service, that world is Il Glorioso Buco, one of Toronto’s most fashionable Italian restaurants. On what should be an exciting opening night, the restaurant instead becomes the setting for a covert operation involving undercover agents, suspicious behaviour, complicated plans and a rookie waiter who may be completely unprepared for everything unfolding around him.

The result is a theatrical mixture of espionage, farce and restaurant bedlam. The set must feel elegant enough to be believable as an exclusive dining destination, mysterious enough to support the spy story and practical enough to accommodate the physical comedy and rapid pacing of the production.

For Morris, the design process began, as it often does, with a small initial spark.

“I always have a little spark of an idea from the title,” she says. “Sometimes accurate, sometimes wildly off base!”

A title can suggest a mood, an image or an entire imagined world, but Morris says the true design process begins when she opens the script. It is through reading the characters, dialogue, action and stage directions that the needs of the production begin to emerge.

“The real design starts once I read the script,” she says. “That’s when the world begins to reveal itself: what the characters need, what the story is asking for, and what kind of visual playground we get to build.”

That idea of a “visual playground” is especially important for a comedy like Secret Service. A set is not simply a backdrop behind the performers. It is a space in which the actors move, hide, collide, misunderstand one another and attempt to carry out increasingly elaborate plans.

Every doorway, table, chair and sightline has the potential to become part of the comedy.

For Morris, the first strong impression she took from Ellis’s script was not necessarily a specific piece of architecture or furniture. It was a feeling.

“For Secret Service, the first thing that came to mind was atmosphere,” she says. “I wanted the room to feel elegant, a little mysterious, and full of possibilities.”

The restaurant needed to feel polished and sophisticated, but there also had to be something lingering below the surface. Morris describes it as “the kind of place where people look polished on the outside, but you can tell secrets are being passed under the table.”

That description captures the central contrast of the production’s visual world. Il Glorioso Buco must appear controlled and carefully presented, even as the situation within it becomes anything but controlled.

It is a perfect setting for a spy comedy. Restaurants naturally contain a sense of performance. Guests dress up, staff maintain professional appearances and private conversations happen in public spaces. People may be seated only a few feet apart while remaining completely unaware of the plans, schemes or secrets being exchanged at the next table.

In Secret Service, those possibilities are pushed to hilarious extremes.

Creating a visually impressive restaurant, however, was only one part of Morris’s assignment. The set also had to work for the actors, director and technical team as the production’s intricate action unfolded.

“A set can be beautiful, but if the actors can’t move through it naturally, it’s just very fancy furniture in everyone’s way,” Morris says.

It is a humorous observation, but one that points to a central challenge of theatrical design. A set needs to look convincing from the audience while also functioning as a practical performance environment.

A dining table placed in the most aesthetically appealing position may interfere with an actor’s entrance. An elegant chair may be difficult to move quickly. A decorative feature may obstruct the audience’s view of an important moment. Every visual choice has to be considered in relation to the action of the play.

“My job is to make the world visually rich while still giving the director and actors a space that supports the pacing, comedy, tension, entrances, exits, and all the sneaky little story mechanics,” Morris explains.

Those mechanics are particularly important in a farce.

Comedy often depends on precision. An entrance that happens a few seconds too early or too late can change the rhythm of a scene. A character may need to cross the room quickly, overhear part of a conversation or remain hidden from one person while being clearly visible to the audience.

In a spy story, characters may also be observing one another, exchanging information or attempting to carry out a plan without attracting attention. The physical environment has to support all those competing needs.

Morris’s design therefore becomes part of the production’s choreography. It helps determine how the action flows and how the audience follows the increasingly complicated relationships between the characters.

The challenge was to provide enough opportunities for movement and discovery without making the set feel obviously constructed for theatrical convenience. It still had to appear to be a real, fully realized restaurant.

“The biggest challenge was making the space feel stylish and specific without making it too precious,” Morris says.

A “precious” set may look beautiful but feel as though no one should touch it. That would be a serious problem in a production filled with physical action, surprises and escalating chaos.

“The set needs to support the story, hold the mood, and still be ready for all the action the play throws at it,” she says. “It has to look like a finished world, but function like a very well-behaved machine.”

That comparison between the set and a machine speaks to the hidden engineering behind theatrical design.

From the audience, the finished set may appear effortless. It looks as though the stage simply became a restaurant. Behind that illusion, however, is a complex network of creative decisions involving dimensions, construction, traffic patterns, materials, props, lighting positions and technical requirements.

Every part must work together reliably through rehearsals and performances.

The room must provide enough space for the actors to perform comfortably while still feeling intimate. The furniture must look appropriate for an upscale establishment but also withstand repeated use. Entrances and exits must be positioned to serve the script. Decorative features must create visual interest without distracting from the performers.

Like a machine, the design works best when the audience does not notice the mechanics.

Instead, they experience the overall effect: the glamour of the restaurant, the mystery beneath the surface and the feeling that the entire room is waiting for something to happen.

Many of the choices that create that effect are found in details that audiences may not immediately identify.

“Yes! I love those details,” Morris says when asked whether there are elements of the design that help tell the story without necessarily drawing attention to themselves.

The style of the furniture, the textures of the materials, the colours used throughout the room and the way the restaurant is dressed all contribute to the audience’s understanding of the space.

“Even when the audience doesn’t consciously clock them, things like the style of the furniture, the textures, the colours, and the dressing all help tell them where they are and how they should feel,” she explains.

A worn wooden table would tell a very different story from a polished formal dining table. Bright, casual colours could create a relaxed atmosphere, while deeper tones and richer textures can suggest luxury, intimacy and intrigue.

The objects placed around the room also communicate information. They can reveal whether the restaurant is old or new, traditional or modern, restrained or extravagant. They help establish the personality of a space before its fictional owners or employees have the opportunity to explain it.

Morris compares those visual details to the ingredients in a carefully prepared meal.

“It’s a bit like seasoning,” she says. “You may not notice every ingredient, but you would miss it if it wasn’t there.”

It is a particularly fitting metaphor for a play set in an Italian restaurant.

A successful design rarely depends on one spectacular object. Instead, it emerges from the accumulation of dozens of carefully considered choices. Together, those choices create an atmosphere that feels complete.

The audience may not leave the theatre remembering the exact shape of every chair or the texture of every wall. They will, however, remember how the room made them feel.

For Secret Service, Morris wants that feeling to combine elegance with anticipation.

“I hope it invites the audience to lean in a little,” she says, “to notice the atmosphere, enjoy the elegance, and feel that something deliciously complicated might happen at any moment.”

“Deliciously complicated” is an apt description of both the play and the space Morris has designed for it.

The comedy begins with a plan that is supposed to be carefully controlled. Undercover agents have entered the restaurant with a mission. They have roles to play, information to gather and an operation to execute.

But covert operations, like restaurant openings and theatrical farces, rarely proceed exactly as intended.

As the complications multiply, the refined atmosphere of Il Glorioso Buco becomes the setting for confusion, improvisation and frantic attempts to keep everything from falling apart. The more polished the restaurant appears, the funnier that unraveling can become.

The visual sophistication of the room creates a contrast with the chaos taking place inside it. The characters may want everything to appear calm and professional, but the set provides a front-row view of just how difficult that becomes.

That contrast also reflects the characters themselves. As Morris notes, the restaurant is a place where everyone looks polished on the outside. Beneath those carefully maintained appearances are motives, misunderstandings and secrets waiting to be revealed.

The set does not tell the audience exactly what will happen, but it prepares them for the possibility that nothing in the room is quite as simple as it seems.

That is part of the quiet power of set design.

A designer can guide the audience without giving away the story. The environment can create expectations, suggest emotional undercurrents and focus attention. It can make a comedy feel more energetic, a mystery more suspenseful or a dramatic moment more intimate.

In Secret Service, the restaurant establishes a world of sophistication and order so that the production can take great pleasure in disrupting it.

While the finished set belongs to the entire production, its beginnings can be traced back to Morris reading the script and asking what kind of space the story required.

The answer was not simply “an Italian restaurant.” It was a restaurant that could support a spy operation. A restaurant that could feel elegant without becoming untouchable. A restaurant filled with practical opportunities for comedy, tension, entrances and exits.

Most importantly, it needed to feel like a place where a secret might be exchanged over dinner, a plan might unravel beside the wine glasses and something unexpected could walk through the door at any moment.

Through her design, Morris gives the cast of Secret Service a stylish playground in which to create the production’s fast-paced comedy. She also gives audiences their first clue about the story they are about to experience.

The moment they enter the theatre and see Il Glorioso Buco waiting for them, the conversation between the set and the audience has already begun.

It is elegant. It is mysterious. It is polished on the surface.

And somewhere beneath all that style, trouble is already on the menu…..

July 6, 2026

By: Don Kearney-Bourque, Marketing & Communications Manager

Lighthouse Festival

There are few names in Canadian theatre as beloved, prolific, or instantly recognizable as Norm Foster. For decades, Foster has been delighting audiences across the country with plays that are funny, generous, heartfelt, and deeply human. His work has become a staple on stages from coast to coast, earning him a reputation as one of Canada’s most produced playwrights and one of the great chroniclers of ordinary people finding themselves in extraordinary, hilarious, and sometimes deeply revealing circumstances.

This summer, Lighthouse Festival is thrilled to close its 2026 season with Foster’s A Woman’s Love List, a delightful romantic comedy that asks one deceptively simple question: what if you could write down everything you wanted in the perfect partner, and that person actually appeared?

As Foster explains, A Woman’s Love List grew out of another one of his comedies, The Love List.

“This play is actually the female version of a play I wrote called The Love List,” says Foster. “In that play, two men accidentally conjure up the woman of their dreams.”

In A Woman’s Love List, the idea is turned on its head. The play follows Carly, a professional sportswriter, and Megan, her best friend, as they create a list of every quality Carly wants in the ideal man. Then, much to their surprise, Blaze Wilson walks into their lives. He seems charming, attractive, attentive, and almost too good to be true. Which, of course, is exactly where the trouble begins.

For all its laughs, mistaken expectations, and romantic chaos, the play is driven by a dramatic tension that has been around for centuries.

“The dramatic tension in this play hinges on that old expression ‘be careful what you wish for,’” says Foster.

That phrase sits at the heart of the comedy. Carly and Megan may think they know what perfection looks like on paper, but Foster’s play has great fun exploring what happens when an ideal becomes real. The result is a comedy about love, friendship, fantasy, and the complicated difference between what we think we want and what we actually need.

At first glance, Blaze may appear to be the answer to Carly’s romantic wish list. But for Foster, he was also the most challenging character to bring to life.

“The character of Blaze was the hardest one to write because he is supposed to be Carly’s dream fellow, but he turns out not to be,” says Foster. “He has many twists and turns.”

That complexity is part of what makes the play so funny. Blaze is not simply a punchline or a fantasy figure. He changes. He surprises. He complicates things. He forces Carly and Megan to confront the limits of their own assumptions. In true Foster fashion, the comedy comes not from mocking the characters, but from placing them in a situation where their desires, fears, and blind spots are all suddenly out in the open.

The result is a story with big laughs, but also real emotional stakes. Foster says the characters are searching for something deeply familiar.

“The characters want love,” he says. “They want to feel love. What’s stopping them from getting that love is the mystery of the man they have conjured up.”

That search for connection is one of the recurring themes in Foster’s work. His plays often revolve around people who are trying to understand themselves through their relationships with others. Whether they are looking for romance, friendship, forgiveness, courage, a second chance, or simply a way through the messiness of life, Foster’s characters tend to feel immediately recognizable. They are funny because they are human. They are moving because they are flawed. They make mistakes, say the wrong things, stumble into awkward moments, and sometimes discover something honest when they least expect it.

Again and again, Foster returns to themes of love, aging, friendship, loneliness, reinvention, and the quiet surprises hidden in everyday life. His plays often begin with a comic premise, but underneath the laughter is a sincere curiosity about people: what they want, what they hide, what they regret, and what they are brave enough to try. That balance has made his work resonate so strongly with audiences. He knows how to deliver a great joke, but he also knows that the best comedies are grounded in truth.

For Foster, that truth comes from experience.

“I think my relationship experiences help shape this play, and that is probably true with any writer,” he says. “We write what we know. If we haven’t had any life experiences, then how can we write about real people? Real life?”

That sense of lived experience gives A Woman’s Love List its warmth. The play may involve an almost magical romantic premise, but the emotions behind it are grounded and familiar. Most people have imagined an ideal partner at some point. Many have carried a mental checklist, whether they admit it or not. But Foster gently pokes fun at the idea that love can be assembled from a list of preferred traits, as though the perfect person could be ordered like a custom-made suit.

The physical world of the play adds to that feeling of intimacy. This is not a sweeping epic or a distant fantasy. It is a comedy that lives in recognizable rooms, in conversations between friends, in the private spaces where people confess their hopes and frustrations. The setting gives the characters room to be honest, impulsive, playful, and vulnerable. It suggests a contemporary world where independence, career, friendship, and romantic longing all exist side by side. Carly and Megan are modern women trying to make sense of love in a world that often promises easy answers, but rarely delivers them.

Foster was also conscious of the responsibility that came with writing this version of the story.

“I didn’t edit anything out of the play,” he says. “I just had to make sure that everything rang true. And being a man, writing for two women, I had to be careful not to make it feel that it was written by a man.”

That attention to authenticity is essential to the play’s success. Carly and Megan’s friendship is the emotional engine of the story. Their conversations are quick, funny, supportive, occasionally chaotic, and full of the kind of honesty that only close friends can get away with. While Blaze may be the mystery at the centre of the plot, the relationship between the two women gives the play its heart.

When asked why he needs to tell this story now, Foster offers an answer that speaks to both the play and his long career.

“I’m telling this story now because I am at an age where what’s gone before has added up and I think makes for a good story,” he says.

That accumulation of experience is part of what audiences have come to cherish in Foster’s writing. His plays are never cynical about love, but they are also not naïve. They recognize that relationships are complicated, that people are contradictory, and that the dream version of life rarely survives contact with the real thing. Still, Foster’s work keeps making room for hope. It suggests that even when we get things wrong, we may still learn something valuable.

Like many playwrights, Foster’s writing process is ongoing, layered, and full of revision.

“I am always rewriting,” he says. “When I complete the first draft, I read it over three or four or even five times. And every time I read it, I change something, until I decide, ‘Okay, that’s enough. It’s time to move on to the next play.’”

For him, the joy begins with the people on the page.

“My favourite part of writing is creating the characters,” he says. “The hardest part of writing is starting. Getting the idea for the play. Once I have the idea, then I’m off to the races.”

With A Woman’s Love List, Foster found an idea filled with comic possibility: two friends, one list, and a dream man who may not be so dreamy after all. But what makes the play truly sparkle is what lies beneath the premise. It is a comedy about expectations, friendship, and the strange bravery of wanting love in the first place.

As Lighthouse Festival brings its 2026 season to a close, A Woman’s Love List offers the perfect final note: big laughs, sharp dialogue, romantic mischief, and a whole lot of heart.

And if Foster gets his wish, audiences will leave the theatre smiling, laughing, and maybe asking each other a very revealing question on the ride home.

“I hope that on the way home in the car, audiences will ask each other, what would your dream mate be like?”

I can also make it a little more sales-focused for the Lighthouse website, or create a shorter e-blast version from this feature.

A Woman’s Love List is on stage this summer at Lighthouse Festival. Get your tickets now at lighthousetheatre.com or call the Box Office at 888-779-7703.

June 30, 2026

By: Don Kearney-Bourque, Marketing & Communications Manager

Lighthouse Festival

There is something irresistible about a spy story. The gadgets. The danger. The whispered conversations in dark corners. The coded messages. The sense that at any moment, someone might burst through a door, reveal a shocking secret, or order a martini with suspicious confidence.

But for David Leyshon, director of Lighthouse Festival’s world premiere production of Secret Service, the appeal of the genre has never been limited to the action alone. It is also the comedy that comes with it: the heightened stakes, the ridiculous disguises, the perfectly serious people finding themselves in perfectly unserious situations.

“I grew up loving James Bond,” says Leyshon. “Likely an unpopular opinion, but Timothy Dalton was the first Bond to really have an impact on me. The Living Daylights led me to Sean Connery, Roger Moore, and the entire Bond canon. I have always been drawn to the action and the adventure, but ever-present in the Bond franchise is humour – there is always a joke, something just a little absurd and silly to go along with the action.”

That balance between danger and delight sits at the heart of Secret Service, a brand-new comedy by Ephraim Ellis. Set inside Il Glorioso Buco, Toronto’s swankiest and most suspiciously well-staffed Italian restaurant, the play throws audiences into a world where international espionage collides with dinner service. There are spies in the kitchen, secrets on the menu, and one rookie waiter named Harry Marsden who has absolutely no idea what he has wandered into.

For Leyshon, that is precisely where the fun begins.

“The spy genre has always been fertile ground for comedy,” he says. “From Get Smart and The Pink Panther to Austin Powers and Johnny English, there is something endlessly entertaining about highly trained operatives finding themselves in completely ridiculous situations. Secret Service embraces that tradition while bringing its own distinctly Canadian sensibility to the stage. It is clever, contemporary, and wonderfully absurd.”

That distinctly Canadian sensibility is part of what makes the play feel so fresh. While the world of Secret Service borrows from the grand tradition of spy thrillers, it does so with a wink, a grin, and a deep affection for the absurd. The play is not simply spoofing the genre. It is revelling in it. It understands the rhythm of a good caper, the joy of a mistaken identity, and the sheer comic potential of people trying desperately to appear in control while everything around them falls apart.

And at Lighthouse Festival, audiences will be the very first to experience it.

A world premiere carries a special kind of electricity. Unlike a classic play or a familiar favourite, a new work arrives without a long performance history. There are no decades of audience reactions to lean on, no well-worn path through the story, no certainty about where the biggest laughs will land until people are actually in the room.

For Leyshon, that uncertainty is not intimidating. It is thrilling.

“Bringing a new play to life, being a part of a world premiere, is always exciting,” he says. “Before the first audience takes their seats, no one knows exactly how the journey will unfold. Every laugh, every surprise, and every moment of discovery belong to that audience alone. That’s part of what makes directing Ephraim Ellis’ Secret Service such a thrill.”

That sense of discovery has shaped the rehearsal process from the beginning. With a new comedy, the creative team is not only staging the story; they are helping discover its engine. Timing matters. Rhythm matters. The space between a line and a reaction can make all the difference. A pause can become a punchline. A look across the room can turn a simple exchange into a comic explosion.

In Secret Service, the pace is especially important. The play moves with the urgency of a spy mission and the chaos of a dinner rush. Characters are hiding things, chasing leads, covering tracks, and trying not to blow their cover, all while navigating the familiar pressures of restaurant life. It is a world of high stakes and low patience, where one wrong move could ruin a mission, a meal, or both.

“I hope you have as much fun watching this play as we had putting it together,” says Leyshon. “Ephraim has created a wildly inventive world in which the high stakes of international espionage meet the everyday chaos of restaurant life. The result is a fast-paced romp packed with danger, mistaken identities, unexpected twists, and an abundance of laughs.”

That phrase — “the everyday chaos of restaurant life” — is key. While the spy elements give the play its glamour and danger, the restaurant setting gives it an immediate comic familiarity. Anyone who has ever waited for a table, misheard an order, worked a shift, watched a server juggle too many plates, or wondered what exactly is happening behind a kitchen door will recognize the madness of the environment.

Now add spies.

Suddenly, every tray could be a threat. Every reservation could be a clue. Every accent could be suspicious. Every bottle of wine could be part of an international incident. The restaurant becomes a pressure cooker, not only for the characters, but for the comedy itself.

At the centre of that mayhem is Harry Marsden, the clueless waiter whose lack of awareness may be his greatest weapon. In a world of professional operatives, secret plots, and undercover schemes, Harry is a beautifully ordinary person dropped into extraordinary circumstances. The more seriously everyone else takes the mission, the funnier his confusion becomes.

That contrast is one of the great comic gifts of the play. Secret Service is not only about spies trying to save the day. It is about what happens when the polished world of espionage is interrupted by someone who does not know the rules, does not understand the danger, and may accidentally be better at surviving it than anyone expects.

For Lighthouse Festival audiences, the production promises a summer comedy full of surprises. It is a world premiere with big energy, sharp writing, and a gleefully ridiculous premise. It has the slickness of a spy thriller, the speed of a farce, and the warmth and wit that audiences have come to love from Lighthouse.

It is also a celebration of new Canadian theatre. By bringing Secret Service to the stage for the first time, Lighthouse continues its commitment to supporting fresh stories, new voices, and the kind of live theatre experience that can only happen once. The first audience will not be watching a reproduction of something audiences elsewhere have already discovered. They will be part of the beginning.

For Leyshon, that is part of the magic.

A world premiere asks everyone in the room — artists and audiences alike — to take the leap together. The cast discovers the play in rehearsal. The creative team builds the world from the ground up. The audience completes the equation, bringing the laughter, surprise, and energy that tell the show what it truly is.

With Secret Service, that leap comes with tuxedoed danger, suspicious dinner service, mistaken identities, international intrigue, and enough comic chaos to turn one very fancy Italian restaurant into the least discreet spy operation in Canada.

“On behalf of our entire cast and creative team, thank you for joining us for this world premiere,” says Leyshon. “We have had an incredible time bringing Secret Service to life, and we can’t wait to share the laughs with you.”

Secret Service is on stage this summer at Lighthouse Festival. Get your tickets now at lighthousetheatre.com or call the Box Office at 888-779-7703.