Millbrook’s outdoor theatre company 4th Line Theatre has announced the casting for the two productions of its 34th summer season: Leanna Brodie’s Schoolhouse from June 30 to July 25 and Megan Murphy’s Wild Irish Geese from August 4 to 29.
“I am thrilled to welcome an extraordinary group of artists to our 2026 season,” says 4th Line Theatre’s managing artistic director Kim Blackwell in a media release. “This year’s company brings together a vibrant blend of returning favourites and compelling new voices, each contributing their own distinct perspective, talent, and energy. I cannot wait for audiences to experience the power, imagination, and magic they will bring to life on our stage this summer.”
The season opens with Leanna Brodie’s Schoolhouse, which was first produced in 2006 at Blyth Festival Theatre in Blyth, Ontario, before being staged at 4th Line Theatre in 2007, returning for a second staging the following year, with both productions directed by Blackwell.
Evoking a way of life shared by generations of rural North Americans, the play is set in 1938 in a one-room school called S.S. #1 Jericho, just outside the fictional rural Ontario village of Baker’s Creek. When 18-year-old Melita Linton takes on her first teaching position there, she meets a delightful but unmanageable group of children.
While she’s up for the challenge, she finds her resolve tested by the arrival of Ewart, a menacing and mysterious juvenile delinquent sent to “straighten out” on a farm after doing time at a reform school. The play chronicles Miss Linton’s struggle not only to connect with a boy who is cut off from everyone, including himself, but to persuade a cautious and close-knit community to open its arms to a stranger in their midst.
Full of warmth and poignant humour, Schoolhouse is a tribute to those young women who worked on their own, shaping the lives of students by inspiring loyalty, fear, and a love of learning, while exploring themes of exclusion, compassion, damage, and hope.
Directed and choreographed by Monica Dottor, this season’s production of Schoolhouse will feature a cast of 28 professional and volunteer actors/musicians, including Alex Pearce in her 4th Line Theatre debut in the role of Miss Linton. Alexei DeLuca and Rainbow Kester will also be making their 4th Line debut in the production, while returning to the 4th Line stage are Robert Winslow, Mark Hiscox, Darragh O’Connell, Padrick Wilson, Jasper Chesser, and Indigo Chesser.
The creative team of Schoolhouse includes musical director Justin Hiscox (who has also written original compositions for the play), costume designer Chelsea Day, set designer Michelle Chesser, fight director Edward Belanger, intimacy director Greg Carruthers, and sound designer Steáfán Hannigan.
Schoolhouse runs Tuesdays to Saturdays at 6 p.m. from June 30 to July 25, with preview performances on June 30 and July 1 followed by opening night on July 2, and an added Monday performance on July 20. The production is sponsored by Miskin Law.
Also returning to 4th Line Theatre is Megan Murphy’s Wild Irish Geese, which saw its world premiere at 4th Line last year during the bicentennial of the Peter Robinson emigration.
Once again directed by Blackwell, the play tells the story of more than 2,000 impoverished Irish families who came to Canada in the 1820s under an emigration plan administered by Upper Canada politician Peter Robinson. Mostly from County Cork in Ireland, the families settled in Lanark County, Carleton County (today Ottawa), and Scott’s Plains (later renamed Peterborough). Today, there are thousands of descendants of these settlers living both locally — including several involved in the production — and around the world.
Murphy will lead the cast of 29 professional and volunteer actors/musicians by reprising her role as the play’s seanchaí, a Gaelic word for a traditional storyteller. Also returning to perform in the play are M. John Kennedy as Peter Robinson, Patti Shaughnessy (who also worked on the play as Indigenous story consultant), Matt Gilbert, Mark Hiscox, Sebastian Sage, Mikayla Stoodley, Lindsay Wilson, Paul Crough, Stew Granger, Nancy Towns, and musician Fiddlin’ Jay (Jason Edmunds). Isaac Harrop will be making his 4th Line Theatre debut in the role of Sean Sullivan.
Crough, Murphy, Shaughnessy, Towns, and Kennedy are all descendants of Peter Robinson emigrants.
The creative team of Wild Irish Geese includes choreographer Monica Dottor, musical director Justin Hiscox (who has also written original compositions for the play), costume designer Bonnie Garland, set designer Michelle Chesser, fight director Edward Belanger, intimacy director Greg Carruthers, and sound designer Steáfán Hannigan.
Wild Irish Geese runs Tuesdays to Saturdays at 6 p.m. from August 4 to 29, with preview performances on August 4 and 5 followed by opening night on August 6, and an added Monday performance on August 24. The production is sponsored by The Pyle Group Wealth Advisory – CIBC Private Wealth Wood Gundy and supported by The Hickey Family Bursary.
Gift certificates and tickets for both productions are available by phone at 705-932-4445 (toll-free at 1-800-814-0055), online at 4thlinetheatre.on.ca, and at 4th Line Theatre’s Box Office location at 9 Tupper Street in Millbrook.
