Tag: show review

News

Comment: Lakefront (The Slotkin Letter)

Posted on September 25, 2024

Alas closed: Sept. 22. Played at Lighthouse Festival, Port Colborne, Ont. but worth a comment.

By Lynn Slotkin | The Slotkin Letter

September 25, 2024

Written by Norm Foster

Directed by Jeffrey Wetsch

Set by Eric Bunnell

Costumes by Alex Amini

Lighting by Kevin Fraser

Starring: Terry Barna (who jumped in for Ralph Small who injured his knee)

Melodee Finlay

Derek Ritschel

Imagine it, a comedy about senior citizens? Whoda thought it? Well, playwright Norm Foster of course. And artistic director, Derek Ritschel who was wise enough to programme it for the Lighthouse Festival.

Christine (Melodee Finlay) and Robert (Terry Barna) are strangers who meet at a wedding. Both are single and lonely. They seem to hit it off, although we are told that there was ‘some’ liquid refreshment that made them brave. They decided so see if they were still sexy and attractive to the other and planned to take off two days and spend it together in a rustic cabin by a Lakefront. Sex was the object. One doubted they were there to discuss Schopenhauer.

We meet them as they arrive at the cabin and are shown around by Duane, the buoyant but awkward son of the owners who are away. Duane seems to burst into the place at inopportune times. That’s part of his charm and the humour of the piece. We learn that Robert is 70 and divorced and Christine is 68. The place is called Lakefront although one can’t see the lake from the cabin. Duane says that the lake receded eons ago, but the name stuck.

While Robert and Christine are a bit awkward, they are also intelligent, funny characters who have life experience on their side. They know why they are there. They have easy and believable banter and both have a keen sense of humour. It does help that their creator is Norm Foster, who knows his way around a quip and a funny laugh-line.

The production is directed with a wonderful sense of wit by Jeffrey Wetsch. The humour of Robert and Christine is never forced thanks to the wonderful performances of Terry Barna as Robert and Melodee Finlay as Christine. A note: Robert was originally to be played by Ralph Small but a few days before he injured his knee and had to leave the show. Terry Barna saved the day and with two days notice began doing the show, with the script in his hand. For my performance (two days after jumping in) Terry Barna hardly consulted the script at all. His manner is easy, funny, laid-back and full of nuance. As Christine, Melodee Finlay matches him with finesse and understatement and that makes her all the funnier. Rounding out the cast is Derek Ritschel as Duane, who pops into the cabin without knocking, without a clue and full of awkward humour. Lovely.

The set by Eric Bunnell is quirky and appropriate for a play that is quirky too. Alex Amini’s costumes are casual for Robert and Christine. Duane always wears over-warm hat and clothes and is so wide-eyed odd, he’s hilarious.

There is a sweet gentleness to Lakefront. It’s full of the wisdom and humour of people looking to get on with life as joyfully as possible, ideally with someone as searching and as funny as Robert and Christine.

The play closed Sept. 22, but it deserved comment.

News

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

Posted on August 30, 2024

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 Prospect, a 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.

News

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

Posted on August 29, 2024

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.

News

Review: Sex and love on the cusp of 70 in Port Dover (The Hamilton Spectator)

Posted on August 29, 2024

Norm Foster and a terrific cast make senior passion dance at The Lighthouse.

By Gary Smith | Special to the Hamilton Spectator

Thursday, August 29th, 2024

Canada’s favourite playwright, the guy who knows mirth-making better than anyone else, has a sweet comedy on his hands.

In our world of increasing tensions, we all need someone like Norm Foster to kick back and make us laugh.

Over the years, Foster has had some heavyweight successes. His comedies, “Here on The Flightpath,” “The Melville Boys” and “The Affections of May,” have been golden.

Ralph Small, left, Melodee Finlay and Derek Ritschel in Norm Foster’s “Lakefront.” | Don Kearney-Bourque photo

This time out, with the world premiere of his comedy “Lakefront” in Port Dover, he’s in a warmer, nostalgic mood.

His characters here are weathered, touched with a tinge of time. Feeling the rush even of “that enemy time,” something Tennessee Williams called the windstorm of regret and a fear of impending mortality.

But 70-year-old Robert and 68-year-old Christina, Foster’s aging risk-takers in “Lakefront,” are not through with life, not by a long-shot. Neither are they past the notion of romance’s soft caress. And maybe, just maybe, they’re ready to kick over the traces and risk a wild weekend together, somewhere nostalgic, like a worn-out old cabin, with its shabby furniture and tasteless orange cushions.

There’s a feel here everything’s tugged from some weather-beaten past. Fringed with dollops of clean white snow resting on its eaves and piled up around its extremities like globs of sugary marshmallow, it’s well, a tad surreal.

Somehow it suggests a world of old love, a world that needs the kindling flame of a roaring flame to ignite stilled passion.

Happily, Foster creates a necessary undertow in his excellent first act of this ultimately sweet and funny play.

Looking for love on the sunny side of 70, his characters are insecure, frightened and lonely. They’re also a tad rambunctious. They may be frightened of where they’re going and what they might do when they get there, but they’re going just the same.

The sadly worn cabin they rent for their tryst is of course a metaphor for the way time erodes everything.

There’s little decoration, faded furniture and a decided whiff of the ‘70s about the place. Those dobs of snow I’ve talked about already stretch across the roof and rest like waves of regret round the outer limits of the flimsy door.

Into this world, Robert and Christina stumble with their pasts as tightly held as their roller bags and shoulder cases. Of course, they’re looking for a second, or is that a third chance at happiness?

They’re likable people, especially in the nicely calibrated, oh so truthful performances from Melodee Finlay and Ralph Small. She’s waifish and vulnerable. He’s bullish and loud. Both are believable for every moment of the first act of Foster’s play.

Finlay has never looked lovelier. She wears her maturity and well, let’s say it, age, like a translucent skin that gives her a slightly fuller frame and more mature appeal.

Over the years, Finlay has starred in a number of plays at Dover, but she’s never been better than right now.

When she walks out of the bedroom door of Eric Bunnell’s weathered old set, hair tousled, eyes lit up like blinking stars, her little shuffle of love, joy and contentment is so endearing you just long to hold her hand and squeeze hard.

Small, who began his theatre career in Hamilton, and about a year ago was so polished and perfect in Sky Gilbert’s wonderful play “Pat and Skee” at Theatre Aquarius, finds such revelatory moments in Foster’s Robert that you ache for his masculine fears about sex, life and the whole damn thing.

You don’t quite want to laugh at his slightly distended paunch wrapped in perfectly outlandish pyjamas, but of course you do. But the laugh is bittersweet, because we know he’s trying so hard to recapture what might be left of his youth.

Together, these two wonderful actors find everything exquisite in Foster’s play and more.

They’re aided and abetted by rubber-faced Derek Ritschel’s comedy turn as Duane, the cabin park’s babysitting factotum.

Ritschel has this role down so well that with every pop-eyed twitch and double take he makes us laugh. It’s not his fault his character simply wears out before the end of the play’s problematic and protracted second act

It is, after all, that second act that’s the problem here. It doesn’t quite equal the authenticity of Foster’s first one. So, the play nosedives into a series of short, awkward scenes that neither flesh out the play, nor its characters. Not even the fine performances, nor the felicitous direction of Jeffrey Wetsch can prevent this happening.

As always, costume wizard Alex Amini has given the characters perfect duds to wear. As always, too, all the production values at Dover are first class.

So, let’s not be churlish, Foster has given us characters to care about and a play worth watching. If “Lakefront” had the power and punch of its first act, right up to its rambunctious curtain call, we’d be dancing out of the theatre on a wave of love.

It doesn’t. No matter. Half a wave is better than none. And Finlay and Small will make you dance anyway, until the final moment, just like some latter day Rogers and Astaire, no matter what they say or do.

Lakefront

Who Lighthouse Festival Theatre

Where 247 Main St. Port Dover and Roselawn Theatre, 296 Fielden Ave. Port Colborne.

When In Dover until Sept. 7 then Port Colborne from Sept. 11 through Sept. 22. Evenings at 8 p.m. most days. With matinees at 2 p.m. some days, Call the box office for details.

Tickets Port Dover, $46 to $51; Port Colborne $45. Students and equity members reduced to $18 at both theatres. For either theatre call 1-888-7703 to purchase.

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.

News

REVIEW: Lakefront At The Lighthouse Theatre (Ontario Stage)

Posted on August 28, 2024

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.

News

Review: Norm Foster’s “Lakefront” Has World Premier on LFT Stage (Port Dover Maple Leaf)

Posted on August 23, 2024

August 23, 2024

Port Dover Maple Leaf

By Donna McMillan

“Lakefront”, a new play by Canada’s iconic and prolific playwright Norm Foster had its world premier on the Lighthouse Festival Theatre stage in Port Dover last week, receiving a standing ovation from its’ opening night crowd.

Foster, who has written more than 70 plays and been the most produced playwright in Canada every year for the past twenty years, averages 150 productions on stage annually, according to Playwrights Canada Press.   A favourite playwright with Port Dover audiences, “Lakefront” tells the rom/com story of Christina, 68, and Robert,70, meeting at the third wedding party of her sister Norah just the week before.   Having a bit much to drink and feeling lonely and insecure about their sex appeal to the opposite sex, the couple make a madcap decision to rent a lakefront cottage the following weekend and test the intimacy waters.   So, what could go wrong?

Pretending they are married, Robert books the one and only honeymoon cabin  on a lake that has receded off into the distance thanks to climate change; not exactly the view the 20- year -old brochure depicted.   And then, there is Duane, who is managing the property for his parents.  He is the backwoods comic foil, sometimes scene stealer, who is happy to show the “shitter” in the cabin, interrupt the “newlyweds” at the most inconvenient of times, cite the noise ordinance when Christina’s orgasmic – like screeching was heard at neighbouring cabins and mooning over the “bride” as the couple attempt to enjoy a wild weekend.

Christina’s deceased husband suffered a debilitating stroke, requiring constant care for several years before he died.   She is still dealing with her guilt over the resentment she felt over the years his care took away from her.   Bob’s wife Tess has been “dead to him” for the past three years after she dumped their marriage of 30 years for a much younger man.   In every play, Foster injects moral issues and matters that tug at the heart strings.  Besides their troubled separate histories, the couple struggle with first kisses, a failure to rise to the occasion in the bedroom and more; needless to say, generating lots of laughs.

All three actors are stellar in their roles.  Melodee Finlay, a LFT veteran, plays Christina superbly.   Besides performing in eight past LFT productions, she has performed at many theatres across the country, in commercials and hosted “A Day in the Country” and “New Home Digest.”   Ralph Small, another LFT veteran, performed the insecure, nervous Robert marvellously.  Besides performing in five past LFT plays and directing one, he also has performed at numerous theatres throughout Ontario.   Occasionally the dialogue in the play would drag a bit, but then Duane came knocking and generated more moments of hilarity.   The audience burst out laughing every time Derek Ritschel as Duane barged into the scene.   As the audience knows, he has been Artistic Director of the Lighthouse   for the past 14 years, directed 31 main stage productions and performed in numerous LFT plays. 

Set Designer Eric Bunnell created a wonderful cabin in the woods on stage.    Kudos to the entire Creative Team: Kevin Fraser, Lighting Designer; Alex Amini, Costume Designer; Daniele Guillaume, Stage Manager; Sara Allison, Assistant Stage Manager.

During the standing ovation Thursday, Derek Ritschel was left (uncharastically) speechless when he was honoured for his 14 years as Artistic Director, the saving of two small theatres, the building of the rehearsal hall, the offering of 17 world premieres, the upgrading of technical theatrical infrastructure, introducing the holiday pantomime and more. He has put Lighthouse Festival and Port Dover on the theatre map.   Derek will be assuming a role as Director in Residence.   Jane Spence will assume the role of Artistic Director.   On leaving the theatre, comments included “wonderful performance” and “delightful production.”   “Lakefront” is on stage in Port Dover August 21 to September 7.   For tickets, visit the box office at the corner of Main and Market, online at www.lighthousetheatre.com or call 519 – 583 – 2221.    

News

Pinocchio Will Thrill Audiences on LFT Stage (Port Dover Maple Leaf)

Posted on August 14, 2024

  

August 14, 2024

Port Dover Maple Leaf

By Donna McMillan

On Thursday, I interviewed story book favourite Pinocchio. I tell no lie. Otherwise, my nose might start growing like his!   I also met with Geppetto, Lucky the Duck and the Coachman; all at their busy rehearsal hall location.  

Pinocchio is sure to be an enchanting, fun loving hit with young and old alike as this special Lighthouse Festival Theatre Young Company production takes the stage in Port Dover August 14 to August 17.   Adapted and directed by Marcus Lundgren, now working with 15 young actors in his 22nd Young Company performance year, this story grows in different directions with each new generation, Marcus told the Maple Leaf.

The Adventures of Pinocchio, a timeless tale, was written in 1883 by Italian author Carlo Collodi.  Pinocchio was a fictional character, carved by the kind woodworker Geppetto in a Tuscan village.  He was a wooden puppet who had dreams of becoming a “real boy” and was the prime protagonist in an adventure filled odyssey that he soon embarked on, stretching from the vibrant streets of his village to the “magical wonders of Pleasure Island.”  If he fibs, his nose grows.

Marcus enjoys working with the Young Company, noting it is so amazing to see the growth of the participants and the bonds that are developed that go beyond four weeks of the theatre program.  It keeps him young, he shared.  He feels it is a fantastic opportunity that LFT offers to young people to foster the next generation of actors.   It’s a wonderful perk to be able to access the expertise behind the theatre.   Aidan Bridge is set designer while Jaden Banfield is costume designer.    In this adaptation, there are a couple new characters; Lucky the Duck and Pat the Dog.   Reflecting the current times, there are also fun things like video games, he shared.   “And who hasn’t heard of Taylor Swift?.”   It truly is fun for all ages, he said.

 Fourteen- year -old Kyle Yule, a Holy Trinity student, is Pinocchio.  Kyle said he was surprised to get this lead role because this is just his second year performing with the Young Company.   He is loving the challenge, noting he is in almost every scene and there are a lot of lines to learn.   “It’s more work.  But, it’s still fun,” he said.    He would like to be involved in professional theatre in the future so this is good practice, he shared.  “It’s every theatre kids’ dream to make it big.” He has also performed at school, mentioning playing the role of Sebastian in The Little Mermaid.   “We all signed up to be here,” he said.  “So, we are destined to find others with shared interests.”

Simcoe Composite School student, Kiana Little, 16, plays Lucky the Duck.   She shared that her character is a con artist who is trying to take Pinocchio down the wrong path.    While it is challenging to determine how to present a brand new character, Kiana said she loves having the creativity and freedom to bring this fresh persona to life.    2024 is Kiana’s second year with Young Company, but she shared she has been acting in community shows since the age of 4. Her hopes are to continue pursuing theatre.  

Jack Priestman, 17, has just graduated from Dunnville Secondary School.   He has the role of The Coachman.   While he does find it difficult to memorize lines, Jack said it is fun to be playing a character that is more of a bad guy.  He is in his third year as a member of Young Company.   If further acting opportunities arise, he’s interested, but his goal is not to be a full – time theatre person.   

Oliver Tilson, 16, is a student at Simcoe Composite School and in Young Company for his third year.   He performs the role of the kindly toymaker Geppetto.    The challenge in his role is to find the energy to play an older character while still portraying the youth in Geppetto’s spirit.  “The challenge is always fun,” he said.    “You push yourself to be someone you’ve never been before……and just get better, better and better.”  Oliver has been involved in community theatre for six years, mentioning involvement with Simcoe Little Theatre and Lynnwood Arts.  He finds Young Company an amazing place to be.   Everyone is part of a team and will do their best.    “It’s a safe place to be free and not be judged by others, he said.”   He hopes to pursue professional theatre and will always be involved in community plays if not.   

Like Pinocchio, audiences “will learn valuable lessons about honesty and friendship,” according to the play description.   “With a sprinkle of fairy dust and a pinch of laughter, Pinocchio shows that being true to yourself makes for the best story.”   So, get your tickets now “for a tale filled with joy, courage and the magic of becoming a real boy.” Call the Box Office at 519 – 583 – 2221, visit the Main and Chapman Street Box Office or www.lighthousetheatre.com

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

Posted on July 31, 2024

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/

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Review: The Sweet Delilah Swim Club A Perfect Summer Comedy on LFT Stage Now (Port Dover Maple Leaf)

Posted on July 25, 2024

If it was a novel, it would be on a Best Sellers’ list for the perfect summer read!   

July 25, 2024

Port Dover Maple Leaf

By Donna McMillan

The Sweet Delilah Swim Club, now playing on the Lighthouse Festival Stage in Port Dover, takes the audience to a cottage on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. There, five women, who first met on their College Swim Team, gather every August over a period of 33 years for a weekend to catch up on everything from marriage and divorce(s) to sex and “staying on top of gravity.”   Friendships are tested.  Lives move in different directions and people change.

But, above all, the women show the steadfastness and endurance of a team that swims together wins. Written by the playwright collective of “Jones Hope Wooten”, it is no surprise that Jamie Wooten was a regular writer on television’s The Golden Girls.  The quick-witted repartee and deprecating observations throughout kept the opening night audience laughing and captivated by the heartwarming and hilarious time travelling journey they were taken on by the five characters.

Susan Henley, Debra Hale, Jane Miller, Susan JohnstonCollins, & Andrea Risk in The Sweet Delilah Swim Club.

Directed by Incoming Artistic Director Jane Spence, the cast comprises Debra Hale as Sheree, Susan Henley as Lexie, Susan Johnston Collins at Dinah, Jane Miller as Jeri Neal and Andrea Rish as Vernadette.  All, excellent actors with numerous credits to their names, performed their roles superbly.  

Sheree was the Team Captain of the Swim Club and continued to organize to the nth degree, ensuring everyone kept to the rules of a “no men, no kids, no work” weekend.

Lexie was a genteel, self – centered southern belle who chased men and thought nothing of being “sucked, tucked and lasered” to stay young.   There were times her friends thought they should have drowned her in the deep end of the pool. 

Dinah was a hard drinking, successful overachiever lawyer with an acerbic tongue who appeared to have no personal life.   

Jeri Neal was the pregnant nun!   You will have to see the play to learn how and why!

And last, but not least, Vernadette lived a tough, down on your luck existence.   Her life was described as one endless country song.    And yes, she would have children again….just not the same ones.         

Written by Jessie Jones, Jamie Wooten and Nicholas Hope, The Sweet Delilah Swim Club premiered in North Carolina in 2007 and has been performed worldwide with great success ever since.   

As always, kudos to the Creative Team of Beckie Morris (Set Designer) who created an authentic looking cottage living room, Chris Malkowski (Lighting Designer), Laura Grandfield (Stage Designer), Alex Amini (Costume Designer) and Katherine Hunter (Apprentice Stage Manager).   The Production Team comprises Alice Barnett, Hailey Parker, Colin Mahon, Kassidy Sharp, Hussein Esmail, Nolan Cortes, Stephen English, James McCoy, Wyatt Hoskin, Aidan Bridge, Clare Padgett and Andy Dominick.

The Sweet Delilah Swim Club will be on stage in Port Dover from July 28 to August 10. For tickets, contact the Lighthouse Theatre Box Office at 247 Main St. Port Dover, call 519 583 – 2221 or visit www.lighthousetheatre.com  Don’t miss it.

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

Posted on July 10, 2024
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.

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REVIEW: Mary’s Wedding (The Slotkin Letter)

Posted on July 9, 2024
Evelyn Wiebe & Daniel Reale in Lighthouse Festival’s 2024 production of Mary’s Wedding.

Intensely emotional. A bitter-sweet, gentle play about love and war.

By Lynn Slotkin | The Slotkin Letter

July 9, 2024

THE PASSIONATE PLAYGOER

The Story. It’s 1920, the day before Mary’s wedding. She dreams of a time a few years before, of a thunderstorm and the first time she met and probably fell in love with Charlie, a young man about her age. Because of the thunderstorm, Mary found shelter in a barn. There she saw Charlie and his horse. Charlie was cowering in fear of the thunder. He still found the ability to calm his also terrified horse. Mary calms Charlie as well after they introduce themselves. She has recently arrived from England with her parents. Charlie is a local farm boy in the prairies. When the storm passes Charlie returns to his usual self. He offers Mary a ride home on his horse. Her mother is not happy about Mary meeting what she describes ‘as a dirty farm boy.’ A friendship forms between the two young people and that slowly grows into love.

World War I is raging in Europe. When Canada joins the war effort Charlie feels it’s his duty to sign up. Mary is upset by this. They have a fight and Charlie goes off to war without Mary saying goodbye to him, but Charlie writes her the most personal letters. Their love grows deeper and it leads up to the day before Mary’s wedding.

The Production and comment.  William Chesney has designed a multi-leveled set with planks here and there that could be a barn or the trenches etc.  Alex Amini has designed the costumes that are simple and effective. Charlie (Daniel Reale) wears a shirt, suspenders and army pants and boots. Mary (Evelyn Wiebe) is dressed in what could be a white nightgown or a long dress.  Tim Lindsay’s soundscape captures the nearing thunder storm, and its receding. It could be the bombs of the war as well.  So that melding of the technical aspects of the production beautifully establishes the world of

Stephen Massicotte has written an ache of a play about an enduring love, compassion, friendship, doing one’s duty and the horrors of war. It’s about how differences don’t matter when the similarities are so aligned, as Mary’s and Charlie’s are. Her mother is a snob when she refers to Charlie as ‘that dirty farm boy.’ Mary ignores it. She is so eager to see him again as he is eager to see her again after that first meeting.

As Mary, Evelyn Wiebe is forthright, confident and sweet. She has a consistent English accent that is endearing. She is compassionate about Charlie’s fear of thunder and charmed by him. As Charlie Daniel Reale is initially our narrator. He tells us the year and what will happen the next day. But first he tells us it’s the day before Mary’s wedding and she is dreaming of everything that leads up to this moment.

When Charlie is properly introduced to us Daniel Reale as Charlie is as shy as Mary is confident—one imagines her snob mother might have tried to instill that attitude in her young daughter, but Mary is also compassionate and understanding. Charlie has the confidence of place. He was born on the prairies and is confident with horses. He can show Mary his confidence and compassion in his own way. The awkwardness they both initially have with each other grows into easy love, affection and trust. Charlie is willing to go into strange territory for Mary, having tea at her house for example; dancing as well. Daniel Reale is almost awkward around Mary, he likes her so much but is unsure it will be returned. But he shines in the scenes in the war. He is terrified, thrilled, excited and compelling. Evelyn Wiebe also has many emotional moments which are heart-squeezing.

Director Derek Ritschel has realized the beating heart of the piece, the awkwardness and intensity of first love. This is also one of the most emotional rendering of the play that I’ve seen. Very moving. Bring Kleenex.

Lighthouse Festival presents:

Plays until July 20, 2024.

Running time: 2 hours (1 intermission)

www.lighthousetheatre.com

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Review: ‘Mary’s Wedding’ in Port Dover elevates the summer theatre season (Hamilton Spectator)

Posted on July 6, 2024
Evelyn Wiebe & Daniel Reale in Lighthouse Festival’s 2024 production of Mary’s Wedding.

Theatre that asks you to believe in dreams fills the stage with wonder at The Lighthouse, writes Gary Smith.

By Gary Smith | Special to the Hamilton Spectator

Saturday, July 6, 2024

If you only see one play this summer, for goodness sake make it Lighthouse Theatre’s ravishing production of Mary’s Wedding.

The Lighthouse in Port Dover is primarily known for its relentless comedies that are mostly laugh-out-loud funny.

Yet, every so often, one of these whiz-bang laugh machines combines laughter with serious thought. Norm Foster’s Halfway There and the heartwarming gay comedy Bed and Breakfast from last season come instantly to mind for the way they do that.

But this year there is something more. When you least expected it, something special has come along.

Daniel Reale and Evelyn Wiebe in Lighthouse Festival’s production of Mary’s Wedding. It’s a richly written, poetic drama that will make you sit bolt upright in your seat, Gary Smith writes. Photo Credit: Don Kearney-Bourque, Lighthouse Festival

Mary’s Wedding, a tender, heartbreaking drama by Canadian playwright Stephen Massicotte, has just opened to elevate the theatre season.

It’s a richly written, poetic drama that will make you sit bolt upright in your seat. You’ll care for its characters, Mary and Charles, strangers who meet by serendipity one stormy night in a weathered old barn. As the thunder growls outside sheltering walls, and blinding lightning pierces the gloomy darkness, these ingratiating souls long for their lives to intersect in a way that might suggest a welcoming, happy ever after moment.

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

So, why do we sit in our seats for the play’s bracing two acts knowing this is not likely to happen?

Call it intuition.

We soon realize playwright Massicotte is refusing to make the world a welcoming place for such willing young lovers. We follow his wayward path as he allows fate to intervene. The horror of the trenches and the bayonet attacks of the First World War become a cruel, intrusive part of the story.

Massicotte takes us down some frightening paths precisely because he is a playwright who, in the end, writes truth, not fantasy.

Mary’s Wedding is not a linear play where one moment necessarily leads logically to the next. There is poetry at work here. It’s not for nothing that Mary quotes from The Lady of Shalott and Charles relates the rougher, masculine world of Rudyard Kipling’s rallying cries for empire and false heroics.

Much of Massicotte’s play is filled with the exotic world of the great poets. Nothing is truly what it seems. And this playwright has us wandering the labyrinth of the human imagination, lost and fearful as we seek the elusive exit from some frightening maze.

This is theatre that is gripping and passionate. You can’t let your mind wander for an instant. Better pay attention. This one’s filled with the grace notes of a remarkable imagination.

Now, none of this would matter a whiff, if Mary’s Wedding were given anything less than a superlative production. It’s not the sort of play to survive half measures.

Fortunately, it has at its helm in Port Dover a director deeply invested in the play’s rich poetic heartbeat.

Derek Ritschel, who also happens to be the artistic director of the Lighthouse Festival Theatre, has taken a breathtaking risk in scheduling such an elegant and thoughtful play for inclusion in a summer theatre season normally predicated on more pedestrian, lightweight fare.

But it goes deeper than that.

Ritschel has directed this anti-war, love story brooding with fantasy and surreal thought, and given the play’s sometimes dark and demonic themes, a sweet coating of romantic truth. It’s something that resonates in the imagination long after you’ve left the theatre.

Ritschel has wisely liberated the poetic fantasy of this riveting work. More importantly perhaps, he has cannily unleashed from his talented young actors, Daniel Reale and Evelyn Wiebe, performances that reverberate with the wondrous ring of truth.

These are star turns that would not be out of place on a Broadway or West End London stage. Yes, dear friends, they are just that good.

Reale and Wiebe unlock in Massicotte’s exquisite drama such thrilling moments of tenderness, fear and passionate longing that we cling to faint hopes their lives will have some glorious happy ending.

Here is where Massicotte exercises reality. By the time the last lingering shadows of Wendy Lundgren’s painterly lighting have vanished from William Chesney’s stunning, battered barn of a setting, and we have surrendered completely to the fantasy landscape that is the surreal world of Mary’s Wedding, we are wed to hopes of happiness, but will they happen?

Go see Mary’s Wedding.

Go dream the dream. It is after all a play about dreams, desires and passionate longings. This one asks you to travel through time and space and totally suspend disbelief. It’s a remarkable journey to the outer limits of the imagination.

Plays like this don’t come along all that often. And when they are directed and acted with a kind of powerful charisma that leaps right off the stage, well, you need to be there to catch them.

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.