For the final event of its 2025-26 season, Public Energy Performing Arts is presenting a new Canadian work from the award-winning Toronto theatre company The Night Kitchen that will transport audiences back to the 1970s.
Written and performed by Chris Earle and directed and dramaturged by Shari Hollett, Donnie and Me and the CBC brings a story of love, listening, and growing up in 1970s Montreal to the Market Hall Performing Arts Centre at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 15 and Thursday, April 16.
Tickets are on sale for a sliding scale price of $10, $20, $30 (suggested), $40, or $50, plus fees, and are available at publicenergy.ca/performance/donnie-and-me-and-the-cbc-chris-earle-shari-hollett/.
In 1974, Earle was 11 years old and living in Bloomington, Indiana, where he and his siblings watched around four hours of television every day. That all changed when his father accepted a teaching position at McGill University and the family moved to Montreal, with Earle’s “fiercely unconventional” mother Donnie deciding to put an end to her children’s TV viewing habits by leaving the family TV set behind.
So what does a pre-teen do without television in 1970s Montreal? Tune into — and become obsessed with — CBC Radio. The Canadian broadcaster’s shows, including Quirks & Quarks and As It Happens, became the soundtrack to the sometimes turbulent relationship Earle had with his larger-than-life mother.
Dubbed “a hilarious and deeply nostalgic journey through the 70s and 80s,” the one-man show weaves a nostalgic exploration of historic CBC Radio highlights with hilarious and touching stories of love and family.
VIDEO: “Donnie and Me and the CBC” by Chris Earle
“This one is very dear to my heart, as it’s the story of my relationship with my amazing mom and her struggles and triumphs, and of course our shared love of CBC Radio,” Earle wrote on a Radio:30 Facebook post ahead of the show’s premiere at the Festival St-Ambroise Fringe de Montreal in June 2025.
Earle is an award-winning playwright, director, actor, teacher, and alumnus of The Second City Toronto. He is the writer of the Dora Award-winning Radio:30, about a radio personality having a meltdown, as well as the Dora-nominated Russell Hill, Democrats Abroad, The Proceedings, and Big Head Goes to Bed, among others. His directing credits include For the Record (The Night Kitchen), Hello … Hello (Tarragon Theatre), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Equity Showcase), and nine revues for The Second City Toronto.
Many of these works were staged alongside Hollett, a Toronto-based director, dramaturge, actor, and writer who is also Earle’s wife. The two first met in 1990 as members of The Second City Toronto and, in 1992, co-founded The Night Kitchen with the goal of producing provocative, intelligent, and accessible theatre with an emphasis on satire and dark comedy.
The Night Kitchen’s inaugural production The Proceedings premiered at the 1992 Toronto Fringe, and Earle and Hollett have since co-created numerous shows. Many productions have toured widely at fringe festivals across Canada, FringeNYC, and the HBO Aspen Comedy Festival. Radio:30 won a Dora Award, a Floyd S. Chalmers New Play Award, a Canadian Comedy Award, and was adapted for CBC television by Crow Street Films.
In addition to working with Earle, Hollett has worked on Kate Lynch’s Early August (Blyth Festival Theatre), Erin Fleck’s Those Who Can’t Do (Theatre Passe Muraille), and Sean Reycraft’s One Good Marriage (Theatre Passe Muraille). She has performed on screen (The West Wing, Wild Card) and on stage for various roles that include VideoCabaret’s City for Sale, White Trash Blue Eyes, I’d Never Give An Acrylic Scarf to the Man I Love (Edmonton Fringe), and five revues as a writer/performer at The Second City London.
As for Public Energy’s presentation of Donnie and Me and the CBC, both stagings will be in a blind-friendly format, developed in consultation with Jason King of the Council for Persons with Disabilities. This means the staging and scripting of each performance is designed to be equally accessible and suitable for blind, visually impaired, and sighted audiences. Support persons attending with a guest with a disability are admitted free of charge. These spots can be reserved by emailing Eva Fisher at eva@publicenergy.ca.
In addition, the April 16 show will be a relaxed performance, designed to be welcoming to audience members with autism spectrum disorders, sensory sensitivities, communication disorders, learning disabilities, and discomfort in formal settings. Audiences can expect a relaxed attitude toward movement and noise in the auditorium, no requirement to remain in their seat for the duration of the show, house lights kept at a low level rather than dark, and a “chill out” zone, located in the lobby, for those needing a break from the show.
To complement the performances, Public Energy will be holding an introduction to improv class with Earle beginning at 1 p.m. on April 16 at The Theatre on King. During the two-hour workshop, Earle will introduce participants to the fundamentals of improvisation through games and exercises in a supportive, safe, and pressure-free environment. The workshop is designed to help participants listen, create, and be present and playful, while understanding improv is not merely about being clever or making a quick joke.
Tickets for the improv class are $10 plus fee and available at publicenergy.ca/performance/intro-to-improv-with-chris-earle/.
kawarthaNOW is proud to be a long-time media sponsor of Public Energy Performing Arts.
