On Saturday, November 3rd, local arts collective Art for Awareness (AFA) brings together an exciting group of Peterborough’s most beloved musical performers for a one-night salute to Broadway.
Directed by Brian MacDonald and hosted by Michelle Ferreri, “Art for Awareness Does Broadway” is a musical fundraiser to support AFA’s upcoming projects in 2019.
Formed in 2013, AFA has been creating some of the most engaging and inventive arts projects with some of the area’s most talented performers.
Their mandate is to create art that centres on important social issues, while partnering with and raising awareness and funds for important local organizations within the Peterborough community.
An important part of our artistic community, AFA productions are always special, and the AFA Does Broadway show is intended to be a fun-filled night that celebrates the music of Broadway and highlights the talented performers living in our community, as well as those who have gone forth and had wider success.
“It’s going to be a fantastic night,” says director Brian MacDonald, who sits as the acting chairman of AFA’s board of directors.
“It’s a plethora and abundance of talent that we have and we are looking forward to connecting with the audience to have a great time.”
Headlining the night are Beau Dixon and Kate Suhr, two of Peterborough’s most beloved performers who have both gone on to great success outside of Peterborough.
Winner of the 2015 Dora Award for Best New Play and Best Performance for his one-man play Beneath Springhill: The Maurice Ruddick Story, Beau Dixon is a multi-talented musician, playwright, composer, and actor. Most recently, Beau performed at the 2018 Stratford Festival in Guys and Dolls and Gilbert and Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore.
Actor and singer-songwriter Kate Suhr left the confines of Peterborough, where she was already a star, to secure headline roles in the Toronto productions of The Little Mermaid and Mary Poppins in 2016, and released her debut full-length album Selkie Bride in September 2017.
Although both Beau and Kate currently reside in Toronto, their connection to Peterborough remains strong and both are still considered treasures of the local theatre community.
“Kate and Beau are two people who are near and dear to our hearts, so we asked them, and there was zero hesitation from both of them to come back and perform,” Brian says.
“They got their start in the Peterborough community and they said they’d love to volunteer their time for this. It blows my mind that people who have had their success still want to be part of the community where they started.”
Joining Kate and Beau are performers who all have individual fan followings of their own, including Paul Crough, Pam Birrell, Marsala Lukianchuk, Jenn Moher, Keevin Carter, Melody Thomas, Brian MacDonald, Meg O’Sullivan, Caitlin Currie, Geoff Bemrose, Kyle Nurse, Ian Jack, Jeff Schissler, Sean Veecock, TJ Collina-Ashton, and more.
All of them will be performing numbers from a wide variety of Broadway favourites, including Chicago, Les Misérables, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Showboat, James and the Giant Peach, The Little Mermaid, and Yentl.
AFA Does Broadway will also include a special revival of sorts when they welcome back Jeffrey Schissler as Hedwig, and Ian Jack, Kyle Nurse, Sean Veecock, and TJ Collina Aston as The Angry Inch, reprising their performances from AFA’s spectacular 2014 production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
“We did Headwig at the Gordon Best in 2014, and we have the whole band plus Jeff Schissler returning to do a set from that show,” Brian says. “Jeff, like Beau and Kate, is a performer from our community who has done big things. We got the whole band back together and they are going to end the show with a big bang. We are really happy to see them come back.”
Funds raised from this blockbuster night of music will be used to help fund some of AFA’s continuing youth-oriented projects that were started this year, such as the Peterborough Youth Arts Festival that was held this past May.
AFA is dedicated to make the Peterborough Youth Arts Festival, conceived by local teenager and performer Lydia Etherington, a yearly event where local young artists and performers can use as a platform to display their work in a safe and accepting environment.
“We introduced the youth festival this year and we are going to do it again next year,” Brian explains.
“We want to expand on what we saw this year. It was a bit of an experiment to see how the community would react to a youth festival that allowed kids to create their own vision of what art means to them. Now we are able to expand that into what art means to Peterborough.”
“It’s not only music, theatre, and dancing, but also visual arts and photography,” Brian adds. “We are raising funds to be able to expand that and allow kids to have something outside of school where they can have a platform to experiment with and have an audience to share their work with as well.”
Funds will also be used to help continue AFA’s dance intensive, “One Earth”, which was introduced last July. Conceived by Rachel Bemrose and Blake Richardson, One Earth intertwined art, dance, music and spoken word into nature.
“Rachel Bemrose and the dance community, and Blake with his art, were able to combine their voices and really take on the environmental aspect of their performance,” Brian says. “Dance and visual art was created in a way that it was able to really connect with the environment while in the environment, and really try to impart to people that we live in a community and that we have so much to say in what we can do to impact the earth.”
Brian says AFA is always looking for new ideas from people who want to get involved with AFA. Their projects, as well as all the other phenomenal performances AFA has created over the years, begin with an idea and AFA has the professionals and the resources to make those ideas a reality.
“We are always looking for outside interests that want to produce their art in a meaningful way, and then reconnect it with a community involvement,” Brian says.
“We have (done this) in the past with the LYNX Early Psychosis Prevention Project, CMHA, The Schizophrenia Society of Ontario, PARN, the Youth Emergency Shelter, and Hospice. We like to link our projects with them to raise awareness of what they’re doing.”
Art For Awareness Does Broadway will be a night of music where everyone wins. It isn’t every day that you get this many show-stopping performers together, and the names on the bill make this a must-see show.
And it is good to know that proceeds from the night will be going back into our community to continue supporting local artistic vision and community groups and causes.
Art For Awareness Does Broadway will be presented at 8 p.m. on Saturday, November 3rd at the Market Hall Performing Arts Centre (140 Charlotte St., Peterborough). Tickets are $25 and are available in person at the Market Hall box office, by phone at 705-749-1146, or online at the Market Hall Box Office or online at markethall.org.
