On Tuesday, June 26th, Globus Theatre at the Lakeview Arts Barn opens its landmark 15th season in in Bobcaygeon with the return of popular performer Leisa Way and the Wayward Wind Band. Across the Pond: The British Invasion, featuring the music of Britain’s most iconic and beloved performers, runs for 14 performances until Saturday, July 7th.
One of the most popular traditions of Globus Theatre’s summer season, this year marks Leisa’s fifth summer at Globus Theatre. A Leisa Way show is always an event to look forward to, with her high-energy stage presence, captivating storytelling, and genuine warmth making her an audience favourite year after year.
One of the busiest performers in the country, Leisa’s roster of musical shows are in high demand across Canada every summer. In fact, her stop in Bobcaygeon is part of a tour through Ontario and Quebec where she’ll be doing 65 performances in only eight weeks.
“We’re having a blast,” Leisa tells me via telephone from Hudson, Quebec, where she was performing Across the Pond at the Hudson Village Theatre. “People ask us if we’re tired and yeah … but it’s a good tired. Every time I leave the stage I’m literally moving a mile a minute changing into different costumes. I have twelve costume changes.
“It’s very intense. If you lose your focus for a moment the whole audience will know. Most everyday life you can be unfocused, but in our case for two and a half hours, we need to keep our focus. But we love it.”
VIDEO: Across the Pond: The British Invasion
Filled with memorable songs, stories and interesting musical trivia, tributes and costume changes, Leisa’s performances are not impersonation as much as concerts that celebrate a certain artist, genre, or time in music.
“I never call my shows revues — they’re concerts,” Leisa explains. “They have really great music and stories. That’s what I love to share with the audience, and the British Invasion has given me a huge wealth of material to draw from.”
Making its debut in 2017, Across the Pond is loving tribute by Leisa and her band (renamed The Lonely Hearts Club Band for this show) to the British Invasion, one of the most exciting and dynamic movements in music history, aand features the music of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Animals, The Hollies, Tom Jones, Procol Harum, The Seekers, Van Morrison, and more.
Leisa reveals that a big influence for the show was the memories of discovering her love of music through her older sister.
“All the music that I knew as a child was from my sister,” Leisa recalls. “I idolized her. She got married when I was seven years old, and I would go and visit her and sit on the floor of her living room with the big huge head set and go through her record collection. I’d spend summers with her, because she ran a restaurant up north, and I had hours and hours to sit in front of her stereo.
“I remember falling in love with Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album with the huge yellow fold-out with all the lyrics on it. That was my favourite memory because it was so cool to have all the lyrics to sing along with. So my sister really started me off on my journey. My mom and dad loved music, but it was my sister’s record collection that got me started.”
Leisa also turned to her husband, actor David Naim, and her good friend and famed Canadian playwright Norm Foster as a starting point to developing Across the Pond.
“David and Norm were the first people I emailed and said ‘Give me the first 25 songs that I can’t do without for this show,'” Leisa says. “When I compared their lists, there were only six songs that were different.”
Not only is it a matter of picking the best songs to do one of Leisa’s shows, but it takes a ton of research to create the thread that ties the show together. For Across the Pond, Leisa had to discover her own interpretation of the impact that British music had on North American culture in the late 1960s.
“Researching the show and learning about the artists and their stories and how it all happened was so exciting to me,” Leisa says. “In the late 1950s music was starting to falter. Artists like Pat Boone and Fabian were starting to conform to the norm. So something had to come along to shake things up and The Beatles were that thing.
“When the Beatles first hit the States, music critics were saying they were awful and they couldn’t sing or play. But when you look back you realize that, no, what they were doing was brilliant. The Beatles set a new bar. Whether you wrote or performed that kind of music or not, that bar to beat was set by The Beatles. It was an interesting journey in more ways than just musically. It was something that the teenagers needed to scream about and idolize.”
While the impact that The Beatles had on North America is obviously a huge part of the show, Across the Pond features the full roster of artists that came out of the British movement. As Leisa points out, the early days of the British Invasion were dominated by men, which allows the members of her band — including Fred Smith, Bobby Prochaska, Nathan Smith, Sam Cino, Aaron Solomon, Randall Kempf, Bob Hewes, and musical director Bruce Ley — to take centre stage and show off their musical talents.
As anyone who saw Leisa’s show Oh Canada, We Sing for Thee last summer at Globus can attest, these guys are not only incredible performers in their own right, but share the same warmth of energy that makes Leisa so popular with audiences.
“In a lot of ways this is really a guy show,” Leisa admits. “It’s close, beautiful harmonies and the guys in my band were excited to do this show because they are so good at it. In the first bit of the show, I tell the story of what happened, but I don’t sing that much.
“It really was a time that was dominated by male performers. In the beginning of the show, it’s about The Rolling Stones and Garry and the Pacemakers and Herman’s Hermits and The Dave Clark Five. There were not really that many girl groups in England.”
However, that doesn’t stop Leisa from continuing the famous tribute portions of her shows where she recreates the looks of some of the musical icons of the era. In Across the Pond, Leisa has 12 costume changes where she does musical tributes to Lulu, Petula Clark, Dusty Springfield, Dame Shirley Bassey, and more.
And Across the Pond doesn’t stop with the 1960s. Leisa and her band trek right into the 1970s and beyond, featuring the music of a diverse range of British performers such as Led Zeppelin, Queen, Annie Lennox, George Michael, Sting, Rod Stewart, Eric Clapton, Adele, and Ed Sheeran.
“At the end of the show, I tell the audience that the British Invasion never really went away,” Leisa says. “There are so many great artists from Britain that continue to thrill North American audiences. I don’t think that’ll ever end.”
Leisa Way’s musicals are always a true treat and make a perfect summer outing. No matter which genre or artist she is covering, it’s impossible not to be affected by the energy, the positivity, and the pure joy that goes into one of her shows. Leisa’s on-stage charisma, matched with the sheer perfection of her extremely talented band, has made her a favourite with audiences everywhere she plays.
With with her popularity growing across Canada, it is a truly wonderful that she comes back to the Kawarthas year after year. Leisa’s shows are among the ones I look forward to the most each year, because I know I’ll be treated to a truly enjoyable night of performance and music. This is the reason while Leisa Way remains one of my favourite performers. She never ceases to deliver, so I can confidently say Across the Pond: The British Invasion is a guaranteed winner and well worth the drive to Bobcaygeon.
Across the Pond: The British Invasion runs from Tuesdays to Saturdays from June 26th to July 7th at the Lakeview Arts Barn. Shows start at 8 p.m., with 2 p.m. matinees on June 27th and 20th and July 3rd and 5th. A three-course table d’hôte menu is available at 6 p.m. prior to every evening performance.
Tickets are $34.50 for the show only, or $71 if you want the dinner and the show. For tickets, visit the box office at Lakeview Arts Barn or call 705-738-2037.
