NEWS ARCHIVES

Summer theatre highlights

May 5, 2008 - Article by Roy Green, North of The City Magazine, York Region Media Group

In a summer where music will dominate stages from Newmarket to Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay, Resurgence Theatre bucks the trend with what promises to be a sparkling production of the spoken word featuring two notable actors and a top-flight director returning to his roots.

Of the 25 productions at seven theatre venues in or near York Region this summer, 14 are musicals or musical tributes and two more have significant musical content.

But the season’s highlight is likely to be Resurgence’s York Shakespeare Festival, which marks its 10th anniversary of staging the Bard in the park in Newmarket with a production of Twelfth Night.

Lee Wilson, one of the founders of Resurgence and a Newmarket native, is coming home after some notable success at Stratford, Shaw and Toronto’s Soulpepper and Tarragon Theatres to direct the Shakespeare comedy in the great outdoors at Fairy Lake.

"I can’t tell you how excited I was to be asked to direct in Newmarket, back where it all started," Mr. Wilson said. "I thought they might have forgotten me since I left Resurgence a few years ago."

Twelfth Night also features Aurora’s Christine Horne, who debuts in a major Hollywood film this month, and King City’s Kevin Walker. Ms Horne stars with Ellen Burstyn and another Canadian, Oscar-nominated Ellen Page (Juno), in Stone Angel, adapted from the Margaret Laurence novel of the same name that moves from the film festival circuit to mainstream cinemas this month.

Mr. Walker, who, like Mr. Wilson, is a Ryerson theatre grad, is co-founder of Toronto-based Bleecker Theatre Company.

Looking at the rest of the summer scene, Mr. Wilson gets a double-dose of Shakespeare when he directs A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Theatre By the Bay, at Barrie’s Heritage Park in July. Theatre By the Bay is also home to what should be the most interesting, certainly the most unusual, production of the season, a musical comedy called Glorious!, which is based on the life of Florence Foster Jenkins.

Ms Jenkins was a rich heiress and spectacularly awful American soprano who built a career out of unintentionally butchering beautiful music. She was so bad she sold out Carnegie Hall on at least one occasion in the mid-1940s. It will be fascinating to see if accomplished singer/actress Mari Trainor can be as bad and hilarious as the original.

Speaking of music, the Red Barn in Jackson’s Point has no less than three musicals highlighting early ’50s rock, country music and a sequel to last summer’s very successful Broadway Treasures from artistic director Jordan Merkur.

Barrie’s Gryphon Theatre is all-musical-all-summer with tributes to Patsy Cline, early rock ’n’ roll, Pink Floyd, Billy Joel, Elton John and Broadway.

The most recent entry to the theatre scene in this area, a lovingly restored 150-year-old factory in Alliston called the Gibson Cultural Centre, is also emphasizing music. For their first full season, Gibson stages tributes to Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash and the rock/country stars who began their careers at Sun Records.

Even Theatre Collingwood, a mainstay of quality spoken-word theatre, leans ever so slightly to musical theatre this summer with a production of the hilarious Lend Me A Tenor.

Summer theatre, it seems, has become summer music.

Theatre listings:

York Shakespeare Festival (Resurgence Theatre), Fairy Lake, Newmarket:
905-953-2828
July 15 to Aug. 21: The Secret Garden
Aug. 4 to 24: Twelfth Night

Red Barn Theatre, Jackson’s Point, Lake Simcoe: 905-733-2276
June 5 to 7: Freddy Vette and The Flames (musical)
June 12 to 28: Cowboys and Outlaws (musical)
July 13: Yuk Yuk’s (comedy)
July 24 to Aug. 9: Same Time Next Year (comedy)
Aug. 3: Second City (improv)
Aug. 14 to Sept. 6: More Broadway Treasures (musical)

Gibson Cultural Centre, Alliston: 705-435-2828
June 13: The Sun Records Story (musical)
July 11: Roy Orbison and Friends (musical)
Sept. 5, 6: Johnny Cash Tribute (musical)
Gryphon Theatre, Georgian College, Barrie: 705-728-4613
July 12: Sweet Dreams (musical)
July 15 to 19: Famous People Players’ present Shake, Rattle & Roll
July 25: The Piano Men II (musical)
Aug. 8: Pink Floyd: The Wall (musical)
Aug. 11 to 16: Forbidden Broadway (musical)

Theatre by the Bay, MacLaren Arts Centre/Heritage Park, Barrie: 705-735-9243
July 10 to Aug. 3: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (at Heritage Park)
Aug. 7 to 29: Glorious!
Aug. 10 to 29: Cinderella’s Summer Adventure (children’s theatre)

King’s Wharf Theatre, Discovery Harbour, Penetanguishene: 1-888-449-4463
June 4 to 21: The Ballad of Stompin’ Tom (musical)
June 25 to July 12: The Mousetrap (mystery)
July 16 to Aug. 2: Sorry ... I’m Canadian (comedy/music)
Aug. 6 to 30: Legends: A Salute to Musical Pioneers (musical)
Theatre Collingwood, Gayety Theatre, Collingwood: 1-866-382-2200
July 2 to 12: Hen & Chickens Vaudeville (comedy)
July 15 to Aug. 2: Wingfield on Ice (comedy)
Aug. 13 to 23: Lend Me a Tenor (comedy)
Sept. 17 to 27: The Long Weekend (comedy)

Photograph by David Leyes

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