Notes from the Local Arts Scene
Welcome to Culture Calling — highlighting arts and culture events and throughout Southwestern Ontario. Not everything happening can be included as there is simply too much, but I’ll do my very best to showcase events that you need to know about. Our region is rich with creative talent and an abundance of festivals, galleries, concerts and theatres. Hopefully you’ll discover something that will pique your interest!
HERE FOR NOW
Award-winning independent theatre company Here For Now offers an off-Broadway experience in Stratford. Founder Fiona Mongillo started producing plays in 2012 in various pop-up spaces. In 2020 Here For Now produced its first full-scale repertory season of six plays on the lawns of the Bruce Hotel, a bold decision at the time as this was the first of the Covid summers, when audiences needed to be socially distanced and masked.
Here For Now has grown exponentially and is moving into a newly renovated intimate theatre space at 24 St. Andrews Street, reviving a former registry building that was slated for demolition. The season opens May 30 and runs until August 31. According to Mongillo, this year’s productions are “about a very human response to a time of crisis: a turning inwards to the relationships that sustain and protect us most…thus you’ll find family at the heart of every show we’ve planned.”
Here For Now will present five mainstage shows, two limited engagements and four staged readings. Staged readings are always interesting as these are plays in development, and audiences get to hear new work and discover new voices. herefornowtheatre.com
PORT STANLEY FESTIVAL THEATRE
The importance of companies that encourage and develop new Canadian plays cannot be stressed enough. Giving emerging and new writers the opportunity to test their work in front of an audience helps to develop productions that can be seen elsewhere. An example of this is Steve Ross’ play, goldfish.
In goldfish two very different people discover that despite their differences in age, lifestyle and interests, they need each other. This is a heart warmer that crosses generation gaps and reminds us all that we have more in common than it may appear. This production was presented as a one act at Here For Now in 2021, and in 2025 is the closing production for Port Stanley Festival Theatre.
Port Stanley Festival Theatre
Port Stanley, a picturesque community on the shores of Lake Erie, has all of the amenities that you would expect: shopping, dining and wonderful beaches. The Port Stanley Festival Theatre is right in the heart of the action and is a hugely popular draw for the town.
Artistic Director Liz Gilroy has selected six Canadian plays promising a “summer of laughter, love, sex, friendship, mistaken identity, and food fights.” How can you miss? The season opens on May 21 and runs until September 13. The playbill at Port Stanley Theatre Festival leans towards lighter fare with an emphasis on humour and connection; perfect for summertime theatre!
Opening the season is Simon Joynes’ Dump Guys who need to “take out the trash” in order to unite as best friends again. A story of friendship, second chances and yes — garbage. For those who love country music, Leisa Way’s Opry Gold, a salute to the greatest tunes in the history of country music, is sure to please.
In Norm Foster’s Doris and Ivy in the Home unlikely friendships and antics from the residents provide laughs and hilarity. Liars at a Funeral by Sophia Fabiilli explores what happens when an ice storm traps a dysfunctional family in a funeral home. Caroline Smith’s The Kitchen Witches follows competing TV chefs that try to join forces when their individual ratings decline, bringing new meaning to the idea of food fights!
New at the Festival Theatre this year are Tuesday Talk Back sessions. Select matinee performances will have Q and A sessions with the artists involved in the show.
The Port Stanley Theatre Festival also has a small art gallery in the theatre. Each new play brings a new exhibit with artists selected from within a 60 km radius of Port Stanley. A percentage from each sale supports the theatre. psft.ca
BLYTH FESTIVAL
Blyth Festival
Blyth Festival was founded in 1975 with a simple mandate: to produce and present the best in Canadian storytelling. The 2025 season features five productions that illuminate Canada’s history, culture, and strong rural roots.
There is already tremendous buzz for the newest play — The Wind Coming Over the Sea — from Emma Donoghue, one of our region’s most prolific creative talents. Starvation and poverty lead a real-life family to flee famine-ravaged Ireland in the 1840s. Filled with traditional Irish songs, the play looks at the promise and perils of emigration.
Playwright Anne Chislett, a co-founder of the Blyth Festival and Artistic Director from 1998 to 2002, premiered her play Quiet in the Land at Blyth in 1981, winning both a Governor General’s Award and a Chalmers Canadian Play Award that year. Quiet in the Land captures the dilemma of traditional values colliding with global politics through the conflict between an Amish father and son on the eve of WW1.
Other productions include Sir John A: Acts of a Gentrified Ojibway Rebellion by Drew Hayden Taylor, “part road trip, part grand heist,” with two pals on a mission to retrieve an Anishinaabe artefact from the British Museum. Radio Town: The Doc Cruickshank Story by Nathan Howe, a country musical, follows four decades of Wingham radio station CKNX. Powers and Gloria, a comedy by Keith Roulston, first presented at Blyth in 2005. blythfestival.com
MORE ARTY-FACTS
Paint Ontario in Grand Bend is one of Ontario’s premiere art shows, featuring over 200 Ontario artists, plus workshops, art demonstrations and various expert panel sessions. Over $14,000 in painting and sculpture awards will be given out this year.
Paint Ontario 2024 second prize winner “Snow Day” by John Lightfoot.
Included as part of the exhibit is The Turtle Sculpture Story. Led by Ruth Ann Lerner and a core team of volunteers, this project involved 130 young artists learning and creating their own turtle sculpture, to bring awareness to the eight endangered turtle species found in Ontario.
Paint Ontario runs from May 2 to 19 at the Grand Bend Legion. Definitely not to be missed. paintontario.com
Each summer Fanshawe Pioneer Village has been the home venue for London’s AvelgoRoot Theatre. This summer’s production, London Fog, was co-written by Adam Corrigan Holowitz and Kydra Ryan, the artistic leaders of the company. London Fog is a gothic-styled romance set in downtown London between 1899 and WW1. Holowitz describes the story as an “odyssey through Edwardian London Ontario which, just like our city now, is constantly changing and full of devious characters.”
The production runs from June 18 to 22, rain or shine, with the barn in Pioneer Village providing a unique theatre setting. alvegoroottheatre.com
If you have an upcoming arts-related event or activity that you want Lifestyle readers to know about, drop an email to kathynavackas@gmail.com. •
