Is He Dead? (May 16 – May 25, 2024)

Jean-Francois Millet, a young painter of genius, is in love with Marie Leroux but in debt to a villainous picture-dealer, Bastien Andre. Andre forecloses on Millet, threatening debtor’s prison unless Marie marries him. Millet realizes that the only way he can pay his debts and keep Marie from marrying Andre is to die, as it is only dead painters who achieve fame and fortune. Millet fakes his death and prospers, all while passing himself off as his own sister, the Widow Tillou. Now a rich “widow,” he must find a way to get out of a dress, return to life, and marry Marie.
Play Type: A new comedy farce
Audience Target: Age 14+, Mild adult language
Run Time: 2 Hours

Cole (May 18-May 27, 2023)

Here’s a fresh musical about the King of Musicals, Cole Porter. Green and Strachan have cleverly put together most of Cole’s hit tunes with a narration which tells the story of his life, from Yale to Paris to Manhattan to Broadway to Hollywood– and, ultimately, back once again to Broadway.

Includes such Porter standards as “I Love Paris,” “Take Me Back to Manhattan,” “Love for Sale,” “Night and Day,” and “I Get a Kick Out of You.” A London success, this delightful new show may be done very simply on an almost bare stage.

Target audience – Adult, Senior, Teen 14+ years

Waters of the Moon (Dec 1 – Dec 10, 2022)

Waters of the Moon …… it is the day after Christmas and the dull routine of a modest and rather shabby Private Hotel is broken by the arrival of unexpected and rather exotic guests.

This play brings forward the effects of the over privileged on those who have lost or never tasted it – and provides moments that touches both tragedy and comedy.

Target audience – Adult, Senior, Teen 14+ years

Wife After Death (Jun 30 – Jul 9, 2022)

Comedian and national treasure Dave Thursby has died, and on the day of his funeral, friends and colleagues gather beside his coffin to pay their last respects. There’s Harvey, who wrote Dave’s material; Vi, Harvey’s wife; Kevin, Dave’s agent, and Kevin’s wife Jane. Dave’s glamorous widow Laura has arranged a funeral to remember, complete with a horse-drawn hearse and an attendant dog. An unfamiliar woman in flamboyant mourning clothes turns out to be Kay, Dave’s ex-wife from before he was famous, and a series of revelations end with Kevin throwing a drink into the coffin and all the guests asking themselves if they ever knew the “real” Dave.
Act II opens three weeks later for the disposal of Dave’s ashes. The atmosphere is tense and Kevin is wearing a controversial tie, but as more truths are revealed, even from beyond the crematorium Dave seems to be having the last laugh.

Enchanted April (Mar 24 – Apr 2, 2022)

** IMPORTANT NOTICE:

Tickets for this production are available through the box office only. Please call 416-299-5557.

A Comedy Drama by Matthew Barber from the novel by Elizabeth von Arnim.

When two frustrated London housewives decide to rent a villa in Italy for a holiday away from their bleak marriages, they recruit two very different English women to share the cost and the experience. There among the wisteria blossoms and Mediterranean sunshine, all four bloom again – rediscovering themselves in ways that they – and we – could have never expected.

2003 Tony Award Nominee—Best Play.
“ENCHANTED APRIL is as good as they come: a lush, thoroughly refreshing theatrical holiday. Escape has seldom seemed so sweet. A magical triumph.” —LA Times.

The Gentleman Clothier (Jan 30 – Feb 8, 2020)

Experienced gentleman’s tailor Norman Davenport has barely opened the doors of his new clothing store when Sophie, an exuberant young woman, barges in looking for work, followed by Patrick, a single father who claims to be handy. Norman hires then both to help tie up the last few threads before his Grand Opening. And whether Norman realizes it or not, he needs help getting into the twenty-first century. Disappointed that he feels he is being forced to cater to the latest fashion trends, he makes a wish that changes his life forever.

“a tailor made play that will not only fit you like a glove, it will transport you to a bespoke world that will keep you in stitches.” – Theatre Orangeville

Exit Laughing (Sept 27 – Oct 6, 2018)

The first play of our 42nd season is the hysterically funny Exit Laughing by Paul Elliott. When the highlight of your life for the past 30 years has been a weekly bridge night out with the girls, what do you do when one of your foursome inconveniently dies?  You “borrow” the ashes from the funeral home for one last card game and the wildest, most exciting night of your life.If you like your jokes bold and laugh-out-loud funny, Exit Laughing will be exactly what you’re looking for. You’ll certainly “exit laughing.”

“…uproarious comedy with a message… peels of laughter and a few tears of joy.” ~ Suburban Times, Washington
“This is the funniest play I’ve seen for ages! …witty dialogue, full of innuendos, had the audience rolling in the aisles.” ~ Stage Whispers

The Chalk Garden (Mar 22-31, 2018)

The Chalk Garden by Enid Bagnold. It is simplistic to describe it as a Comedy Drama – in reality, it is a beautifully-written and thoughtful drama disguised as a drawing room comedy.

Mrs. St. Maugham lives in her substantial but faded manor house by the sea in Sussex, where the garden is composed of lime and chalk. She is taking care of her teenage grandchild, Laurel, who has been setting fires. Miss Madrigal, an expert gardener, is hired as a governess, despite her lack of references. Also in the household is a valet, Maitland, who has just been released from a five-year sentence in prison. Olivia, Laurel’s mother, who has remarried, arrives for a visit. When the Judge comes to the house for lunch, he reveals that he had sentenced Miss Madrigal to jail for murder… Recently revived to acclaim on the West End in 2008, this psychological chamber piece explores the secret world of childhood through the prism of a dyed-in-the-wool British dowager Mrs. St. Maugham and her precocious and equally eccentric granddaughter Laurel. When the enigmatic Miss Madrigal is hired as household companion and manager, the two finally meet their match. Revived several times on Broadway and in the West End, a film version appeared in 1964, starring Edith Evans, Deborah Kerr, Hayley Mills and John Mills. Angela Lansbury was due to appear in a Broadway revival in June 2017, but has just backed out because (unsurprisingly!) she feels that can’t cope with the prospect of having to play 8 performances a week at the age of 91.

“Enid Bagnold’s The Chalk Garden opened in London in 1956, just a few weeks before John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger… More than half a century on, it now seems the greater play. Indeed… this half-forgotten, dust-encrusted drama looks like a true 20th-century masterpiece.” ~ Charles Spencer, The Daily Telegraph, 2008

“A tantalizing, fascinating and stimulating piece of theatre.” ~ New York Daily News

“This endearing play never seems to age, perhaps because its characters are written with such wit and brittle cleverness…It is a fragile, gossamer-winged play…”~ Rex Reed, Chicago Tribune, 1971

“…Enid Bagnold’s splendidly crafted well made play (and this term is used with no pejorative intent) is delightful to the ear. Gems of lines emerge on balance from almost every character at regular intervals, and each scene has its own, delightful, curtain line. This is a thinking man and woman’s drawing room comedy with explorations of mother daughter relations, class distinctions, and marvelous reflections on the law.” ~ ChicagoCritic

“A very fresh and personal kind of play with wit, literacy, and an almost unearthly integrity.” – New York Herald Tribune

“Bagnold’s most audacious trick was to disguise her coruscating study of mother/daughter relationships, lovelessness and the collapse of upper-class control as a laugh-aloud comedy. Her dialogue has a glistening comic surface that Oscar Wilde would have envied.” ~ Variety

“… the late Bagnold (who also penned the better-known National Velvet) is one of the most underestimated of the post-war British playwrights, probably because she was a woman writing mainly about, and for, other women.” ~ Chicago Tribune, 2006