The inaugural production from Trent Valley Archives Theatre is encouraging audience members to dive back into their own ancestry while learning about local history.
Tickets are currently on sale for Tide of Hope, which is coming to Market Hall Performing Arts Centre in downtown Peterborough at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 15th and Thursday, May 16th, with a show for school groups held at 1 p.m. on Wednesday. While the Thursday night performance is now sold out, tickets are still available for Wednesday night.
Written by award-winning playwright Ed Schroeter and directed by Gerry McBride, Tide of Hope is a prequel to the immigration story of Peter Robinson, the 19th-century Upper Canada politician who helped the settlement of more than 2,000 Irish Catholics to Upper Canada in 1825.
Set in the Blackwater River district of County Cork in Ireland, the story is based on the life of David Nagle of Mitchelstown, an Irish land agent (rent collector) who was forced to flee to Upper Canada when Irish rebels branded him a traitor.
“I have been in Peterborough 20 to 25 years and I certainly have heard a lot about the Robinson immigrants, but I didn’t realize just how close so many people were to it,” says McBride. “There are people that are direct descendants, and so many people have come forward with family ties. It’s been really quite interesting how many people know they’re descendants and they’re very, very proud of it.”
McBride is a retired Peterborough elementary school teacher, having spent most of his career at Highland Heights Public School. Active both on stage and behind the scenes, McBride has written plays, directed kids’ productions, and most recently had a part in the Peterborough Theatre Guild’s The Crucible last year. Having previously worked alongside playwright Schroeter, he was eager to jump on board for the inaugural production from the Trent Valley Archives Theatre.
On stage, the Tide of Hope cast includes Lauren Murphy, Nathan Govier, June Govier, Brogan McKellar, Lucas Pronk, Carling Dulder, Drew Mills, Elaine Day, and Paul Baines.
“The cast has been great and they’re nothing but hard-working,” says McBride. “It’s a combination of some experienced actors from the Guild and other theatres, some young people, and two or three actors who have never done stage before or haven’t done it in a long time. It’s been a real interesting and fun combination of people.”
The production is a fundraiser for the Trent Valley Archives, an award-winning organization which works to the identification and care of documents relating to people, places, and events connected to the Trent Valley. The theatre company is an initiative launched earlier this year to bring history to life on stage.
“It’s very interesting that there is a place to do this sort of research,” says McBride of Trent Valley Archives. “It’s very pervasive that people have all this family history here.”
Prior to the public performances, Trent Valley Archives Theatre is hosting a special matinee show for school groups on May 15 at 1 p.m. Whether it’s about the play itself or the history presented in the story, students can ask questions after the show.
As a former educator, McBride knows how much theatre and other art forms can be a bridge for student learning.
“I always took advantage of opportunities to bring kids to plays — whatever they were about — just because a lot of kids don’t get the experience of seeing live theatre often,” says McBride, noting that the play is geared for students of grades six through 12.
“Some of them might be students that are wondering about going into arts programs, so I think getting kids to see live theatre as much as possible is really important. I remember even as a kid being taken to plays in school and being really moved.”
As for the history the story contains, McBride is hopeful students will learn a thing or two and is curious to see if the students will have any “different reactions” to scenes compared to the general audiences.
“It’s important local history and it’s not part of any curriculum — that I know of, anyway — to learn specifically about local history and Robinson immigration,” he says. “For some of these kids, this might be brand new to them. Hopefully teachers are making the effort to bring them and will use this as a discussion when they get back to school, so they’ll learn something about the local history and maybe even some of the direct ties to their own families.”
McBride notes the script that will be performed at the Market Hall has evolved since Schroeter first wrote it.
“This is a very different version,” McBride explains, noting that the character of The Descendant and the Stage Manager are entirely new. “It adds a really interesting dimension to the script.”
The characters were inspired by conversations between team members regarding how to balance the historical and fictional elements of the story.
“Ed was very careful about his research and the characters are all based on people that were actually on the ships and some details about their history,” McBride says. “It’s a work of fiction, but the people are historical. We just got talking about how much we have to try to be historically accurate and how much can we change.”
Similarly, there were revisions to Robinson’s character based on early readings where the character was described as too “noble”, despite having his own stakes in the settlement.
“Some people said he came across as almost too nice, but there was an aspect of him that was a businessman and an entrepreneur,” says McBride. “There was some self-interest in what he was doing, so we we tried to put a little bit of that in there.”
Despite the fictionalization of history, McBride is hopeful that Tide of Hope will be a jumping-off point, inspiring audience members to conduct their own research — especially ahead of the bicentennial of the Robinson settlement happening next year.
“Even though this is a work of fiction, if nothing else it really gets people thinking about how this really happened almost 200 years ago,” he says. “I think the more you know where you come from and why things are the way they are —even if it’s not all perfectly true — sometimes it then gets you wanting to do some more research.”
While the May 16th performance is sold out, tickets are still available for the May 15th performance at a cost of $40 for assigned cabaret table seating or $30 for regular assigned seating. Tickets are available in person at the Market Hall box office (140 Charlotte St, Peterborough), by phone at 705-775-1503, or online at tickets.markethall.org/tide24.
More information, including educational resources, is available at trentvalleyarchives.com/tvat/.
kawarthaNOW is proud to be a media sponsor for Tide of Hope.
