For the third production of its 2023-24 season, the Peterborough Theatre Guild is staging the family play The Enchanted Bookshop by Todd Wallinger with eight performances from December 1 to 10 including weekend matinees.
A comic fantasy, The Enchanted Bookshop is set in a used bookstore called A Likely Story, where something magical happens at night: beloved literary characters leave the pages of their books and come to life — unbeknownst to Margie, the bookstore’s cat-loving, kind-hearted, and eternally optimistic owner who struggles to find customers to buy her books.
Worried about Margie and her bookstore, six of the literary characters who have come to life — The Wizard of Oz’s Dorothy Gale (and her little dog too), Robin Hood, Pollyanna, Sherlock Holmes, Heidi, and Tom Sawyer — wish they could help her, but there are two rules to the magic that brought them to life: they aren’t allowed to leave the bookstore and they aren’t allowed to let humans see them, or else they’ll disappear back into their books forever.
After a mysterious lady in red hides a locked book containing a stolen necklace in the bookstore, two threatening but rather inept jewel smugglers soon come looking for it, leaving the book characters with a dilemma. Should they risk their real-life existence by warning Margie, or is there some other way they can protect her without being seen?
In this play that celebrates the joy of reading, additional famous literary characters also make an appearance, including Fagin from Oliver’s Twist, the Queen of Hearts, Long John Silver, Doctor Dolittle, Anne of Green Gables, the Wicked Witch of the West, Hopalong Cassidy, and Frankenstein’s monster.
The Enchanted Bookshop was written in 2017 by American playwright Todd Wallinger, who fell in love with theatre as a child but went on to become an electrical engineer before deciding to follow his dreams and return to the theatre. In 2005, he launched a children’s theatre company in Colorado where he discovered writing plays was his true calling. Since then, the award-winning playwright has published 25 plays that have been produced more than 2,500 times in 23 countries.
“The Enchanted Bookshop is my favourite play because I think it’s my most personal play,” Wallinger told Jeremy Johnson of Pioneer Drama Service, which has published most of his plays.
“When I was writing it, there had been some other plays that have book characters coming alive, but I just had to write this one because it just had so much personal meaning to me. Growing up, I was such a big reader. I loved books, and when I read it all came alive for me.”
“Now that I’m an adult, I just don’t see kids reading so much — I understand why, with so many other entertainment options out there. I wanted to write something that really shared that love of books with a new generation. I wanted to write something to show how powerful books can be for inspiring our imagination and really helping each of us become more human.”
Directed by Sarah Rogers and produced by Marion Griffin with Hayley Griffin-Montgomery, the Peterborough Theatre Guild production features a cast of both adults and children. It stars Emma Cartwright as bookstore owner Margie, Maeve O’Neill as Dorothy, Edward Sweeney as Robin Hood, Cailleach Beaton as Pollyanna, Stewart Grainger as Sherlock Holmes, Skye Beaton as Heidi, Darragh O’Connell as Tom Sawyer, and Keith Goranson and Jill Lipsett as jewel smugglers Fingers and Eddie.
The cast also features Isabella Russell as Margie’s cat Bombalurina, Rylie Milwain as Toto, Olyvia Foster and Hannah Lipsett as mother-and-daughter bookstore customers Mom and Tammy, Mridul Harbhajanka as the Lady in Red, Emily Beamish as Officer Ketchum, Ashley Gosselin as the Book Fairy, Mark Caravaggio as Fagin, Saoirse MacQuarrie as the Queen of Hearts, Aaron Black as Long John Silver, Jim Mills as Doctor Dolittle, Anna Mcintyre as Anne of Green Gables, Miranda Moorcroft as the Wicked Witch of the West, Vienna Black as Hopalong Cassidy, and Mark Caravaggio as Frankenstein’s monster.
The production’s crew and creative team includes stage managers Hayley Griffin-Montgomery and Saoirse MacQuarrie, musical director Christina Wheeler-Moorcroft, choreographer Bryanna Ostrander, and set designer Hayley Griffin-Montgomery, with set construction by Hayley Griffin-Montgomery and Phil Griffin-Montgomery and set dressing and painting by Shirley Bankey, Sharon Pearsall, Hayley Griffin-Montgomery, and Bella Joore.
Props are by Bella Joore, Christian Joore, and Sarah Joore, sound and light design by Andrew Duncan and Abbey Duncan with sound and light operators Amy Willshaw, Mark Gray, and John Robinson, costume design by Elaine Day and Gwen Hope, and makeup design by Shelley Moody with makeup by Bryanna Ostrander, Terry Lucy-MacNeil, Kate O’Connell, and Hayley Griffin-Montgomery. Siobhan MacQuarrie is the production’s photographer.
The Enchanted Bookshop opens on Friday, December 1st at 7:30 p.m., with other evening performances from Tuesday, December 5th to Thursday, December 7th and 2 p.m. matinee performances on Saturday, December 2nd and Sunday, December 3rd and Saturday, December 9th and Sunday, December 10th. All performances take place at the Guild Hall at 364 Rogers Street in Peterborough’s East City.
Tickets are $15 and are available online at peterboroughtheatreguild.com or by calling the box office at any time at 705-745-4211 (if the box office is not open when you call, leave a message and they will call you back).
kawarthaNOW is proud to be a media sponsor of the Peterborough Theatre Guild’s 2023-24 season.
