Nostalgia buffs get ready to flip out. With this winner you’ll be transported to the golden days of the American Songbook and the golden days of TV’s “Your Hit Parade.”

By Gary Smith | Special to The Hamilton Spectator

September 25th, 2025

I hate tribute shows. Why would I want to watch performers pretend to be someone else?

That’s what I always thought, until “Memories of The Rat Pack,” Christopher McHarge’s terrific celebration of the irreplaceable Frankie, Dean and Sammy.

Nostalgia buffs get ready to flip out — with this winner, you’ll be transported to the golden days of the American Songbook and the golden days of TV’s “Your Hit Parade.”

Remember when you could understand every word your favourite star sang? Remember a world when music wasn’t just a thumpity-thump-thump of four-letter words? Remember when gold-plated stars had personalities that reached right off the stage?

Instead of assaulting your ears, they invaded your heart.

Well, get ready for Frankie, Dean and Sammy, three of the greatest male pop stars in the world of entertainment.

This is no cheesy imitation show with three phoneys struggling to create sketchy impersonations. No, this is an honest-to-goodness reminder of how terrific the old stars were. It’s all about the way they caressed the lyrics of those wonderful old songs by the likes of Cole Porter, Jimmy McHugh and George Gershwin.

And it’s also about the fun they had on stage, performing at those great watering holes of yesteryear, the Copa Room at the Sands, or The New Frontier in Las Vegas. Or maybe way back east in New York at Jules Podell’s Copacabana and those lavish hotels, such as the Waldorf and The Plaza .

Of course, it’s pretty much all gone today. Places like Toronto’s Imperial Room, where stars like Peggy Lee and those cuties The McGuire Sisters held sway, have turned into boring convention halls.

That’s why a nostalgic look at the likes of the guys known as The Rat Pack is so much fun.

For one thing, they could really sing. There was no messing around about that. When they cut loose on any one of their hit tunes, it was every bit as good as the record you treasured at home.

Thankfully, the stars of the show now in Port Dover mostly don’t try to imitate their voices. They don’t have to, they’ve got terrific voices of their own, so instead they interpret, rather than impersonate, the fab three.

When Dean Hollin leans into Sinatra’s “My Way,” “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” and “One More for the Road,” you know those songs have been superbly sung. Hollin has an ingratiating — no, make that charming — way about him. He fills the stage with his voice and his presence. He makes you glad you’re listening.

Originally from Hamilton, where he sang in a handful of musicals at Hamilton Theatre Inc., and acted the hell out of some dramatic shows at Burlington Little Theatre, Hollin is worth the trip to Dover all on his own.

But then, so are the guys who share the stage with him.

Derek Marshall is the real cutup of the trio, finding both the comic zest of Dean Martin, as well as the wonderful laid-back quality of his voice. He has fun with “That’s Amore” and “You’re Nobody ‘til Somebody Loves You,” and he conjures perfectly the charm of Italy with “An Evening in Roma.”

Shane Phillips comes into his own as Sammy Davis Jr. with “Mr. Bojangles” and “What Kind of Fool Am I.” And when the three singers come together on one of the oldies but goodies, they rock the roof off the theatre.

The show is supported by a live six-piece band led by Stephen Ingram, a Hamilton lad who’s well on his way to becoming a super hot musical director and pianist.

Things deflate a little late in the second act, when McHarge tries to resurrect the kind of madcap comedy the original Rat Pack did on the Vegas stage.

Imagine sitting ringside at The Sands after a few drinks, watching Sammy, Dean and Frank kibitzing on stage, pulling down each other’s pants, interrupting each other’s big numbers, and generally acting like goons. Of course it worked.

But it’s not easy to create that same supercharged atmosphere on stage in Port Dover. The guys work a touch too hard to be funny and the nonsense goes on a tad too long. Worse yet, this distraction interrupts the show’s build at a crucial point, so it takes a while to get things back on track.

It’s the songs, and the way these guys sing them, that holds “Memories of The Rat Pack” together, and fortunately there’s plenty to enjoy.

For my money, cavils aside, this is one of the best entertainments I’ve seen this year. Go celebrate the genius of three of the best male entertainers in Vegas history. This one deserves full houses all through its run.

_{Opinion articles are based on the author’s interpretations and judgments of facts, data and events. More details}

Gary Smith has written about theatre and dance for The Hamilton Spectator, as well as a variety of international publications, for more than 40 years.

This is vintage Foster. It’s the popular Canadian playwright at his best. He’s not afraid here to let us feel a little something — cry a little, even — for the sometimes-bewildering way life knocks us around.

By Gary Smith | Special to The Hamilton Spectator

September 3rd, 2025

I’m tired of all those theatre snobs who snub Norm Foster. They like to downgrade the work of Canada’s main funnyman.

Too bad.

When it comes to theatre, Foster is our kingpin of comedy. The guy knows how to make us laugh. After all, he’s written 74 plays. And yes, I know, they’re not all terrific. But plenty of them are, and they’ll tickle your funny bone while they warm the cockles of your heart.

Take “Here On The Flight Path,” the Foster comedy currently packing the Lighthouse Festival Theatre in Port Dover. It’s a real corker.

Just ask Foster himself, who says it’s his funniest play.

“I think there are more laugh lines in that play than anything I’ve produced before or since,” he says. When you consider the impact of other big Foster winners, like “The Melville Boys” and “The Foursome” that’s saying something.

“Here On The Flight Path,” is about relationships. It’s all about trying to connect. Three women are at a crossroads in their lives. There’s sweet and sassy Fay, a hooker who works out on her balcony. She’s lots of fun and catches the eye of John Cummings, her on-the-make next door neighbour.

Then there’s Angel, a bit of a goofus who fancies herself something of a Streisand-style singer and has Cummings in her eye line. Add down in the dumps Gwen. Divorced and bored, she’s looking for someone who’ll give her spirits a lift.

And guess what? In director Derek Ritschel’s compelling Lighthouse production, all three of these very different ladies are played by the same terrific actress.

That’s the way Foster wrote the play. And frankly, it’s the only way to do justice to this warm-hearted comedy. A lot of theatres don’t trust a trifecta performance, so they tend to cast three actresses to play the women who move in one at a time to the apartment next to John Cummings. And that robs the play of its real punch.

Certainly, Julia Dyan makes all three of Foster’s women believable, finding under Ritschel’s sometimes pushed, but always assured direction, a trio of characters who not only lean on the play’s comic surface, but find in its undertow an important, underlying heartbeat.

Foster told me he believes, “These women are at a crossroads in their lives and Cummings is the lovable loser on hand to help each of them through a crisis.”

This centres the play’s undercurrent of truth squarely on the relationship each of them has with friendly neighbour Cummings. Any actor tackling Foster’s male role must have a charming exterior, as well as the ability to engage us in an understanding of his own vulnerability.

Even when he’s acting like a know-it-all male, looking for the main chance, puffing out his chest like some randy rooster, this guy’s got to be to be likable.

Happily, Reid Janisse is just that sort of actor. He’s a guy with a lot of heart, even when he’s putting the make on his female neighbours. I guess you could call it chemistry. That’s what works in each of the encounters Cummings has with his vulnerable neighbours.

And it’s what gives Foster’s play something a lot more than a series of jokes and one-liners.

The play is set on adjoining apartment balconies, designed by Eric Bunnell. They look like a place where Angel, Gwen, Fay and John would actually live. There is nothing spectacular in these realistic outdoor spaces, but they have a lived-in look about them that is perfect.

As usual, designer Alex Amini provides costumes that cling to a play’s characters like a second skin. We just know, for instance, Angel would dress with a flair for kookiness that’s a signal of an obvious cry for attention. And we know too, that Fay would dress with a sexy sophisticated edge that announces she’s available, even if it is at a cost.

Because “Here On The Flight Path” is a play about male-female relationships it never avoids finding the funny side of sexual flirtation and expectation.

At the same time, it doesn’t ignore the undertow of truth that makes you care about its vulnerable characters, caught in a need for companionship, human longing and maybe even love.

This is vintage Foster. It’s the popular Canadian playwright at his best. He’s not afraid here to let us feel a little something — cry a little, even — for the sometimes-bewildering way life knocks us around.

When Foster is at his best, the worlds of comedy and drama ally nicely. That means theatre exists at the sweet spot, somewhere where we can sit in our seat and sigh contentedly.

This one is easily 10 out of 10.

_{Opinion articles are based on the author’s interpretations and judgments of facts, data and events. More details}

Gary Smith has written about theatre and dance for The Hamilton Spectator, as well as a variety of international publications, for more than 40 years.

Whether you ever cared for western movies or not, you’ll find much to like in this well-paced Canadian comedy.

By Gary Smith | Special to The Hamilton Spectator

August 8th, 2025

Like mistaken identities and shootouts in saloons? Like a lily-white good guy who’s fighting for truth and justice in a town where six-shooters define the kind of law and order that ruled the Old West?

Want to watch the good guy, handsome as a hoot owl on a hot summer night, make a sweet bid for the perky, but emancipated town dream queen?

Well then, I’ve got a comedy for you.

“Pinkerton Comes to Prospect” is old-time nostalgia knocked right into the 21st century. It sits quite nicely on the Lighthouse Festival Theatre stage at Port Dover against set designer Megan Cinel’s nostalgic-looking set, washed over by Alex Sykes’ painterly lighting.

Everyone is dressed appropriately in costume designer Alex Amini’s worn western duds, looking like folks out of a vintage John Huston movie. It’s easy to believe, in fact, that we are in some 1890 town somewhere in North America.

Fortunately, a strong acting cast is on hand to get us through some rather broad comedy of the most physical kind, before Jamie Williams’ rather schizophrenic play decides to settle down and look for a modicum of truth in the better-constructed second act.

It’s worth the wait.

Director Steven Gallagher is a dab hand at the sort of choreography that makes the physical nonsense of the outrageous sort work. With “Pinkerton Comes to Prospect” he’s even better at making the romantic warmth of the relationships in playwright Williams’ last act navigate some leftover silliness.

This allows us to walk out of the theatre feeling such old-fashioned values as family, love and loyalty to relations and friends are, at the same time, thoroughly modern and worth caring about.

Even so, it’s difficult to understand what Williams is trying to do early on with so much overt comedy. He tends to swamp the play with laugh lines before finally settling down to make his characters believable.

Of course, in many ways the play is a farce, with all the madness and outrageous invention of such a genre.When young and handsome Herschel Penkerton comes to town with his cartographer’s equipment to do some survey work, he is mistaken for a tough gunslinger called Pinkerton, hired by Prospect’s town mayor to protect him from a bold gunfighter who plans to do him in.

Now, I wouldn’t dream of telling you how things turn out. And you probably wouldn’t believe me if I did. Let’s just say you’ll have fun watching the craziness work itself out and more reality creep in.

Ryan Bommarito is perfect as the poor put-upon Penkerton falling for the outspoken Miss Lacey of Evelyn Wiebe. She’s spot-on as the emancipated woman he chooses to share his cartographer’s tools with.

Matthew Olver has fun with the role of Doc, the mayor, doctor, slightly sadistic dentist, and a bit of a selfish cad. Because this is a comedy he, of course, straightens up and finally comes to terms with happiness.

Adrian Shepherd-Gawinski, who was terrific in “Bed and Breakfast” in Dover, works a tad too hard here at the role of Amos, the saloon dogsbody. He isn’t helped by being handed laugh lines that just don’t land and by being made to perform visual shtick that becomes tiresome.

It’s not his fault, either, that the role has been written with a very heavy hand.

I can’t tell you a lot about the character Jessica Sherman plays without giving away a key surprise and spoiling your enjoyment of the play. Let’s just say Sherman gives a terrific performance and helps to give this comedy its second act resuscitation that gives the play its rapidly beating heart.

“Pinkerton Comes to Prospect” begins as an outrageous comedy with physical high-jinks and plenty of comic situations.

It finishes by becoming a rather gentle and loving look at romance, friendship and truth, and suggests the need to embrace the world with hope and humane intentions. What starts out as a frantic, overly busy comedy, becomes a warm and tender realization of how necessary family and union really are.

Whether you ever cared for western movies or not, you’ll find much to like in this well-paced Canadian comedy.

Go have fun.

_{Opinion articles are based on the author’s interpretations and judgments of facts, data and events. More details}

Gary Smith has written about theatre and dance for The Hamilton Spectator, as well as a variety of international publications, for more than 40 years.