encoreNOW is a bi-weekly column by Paul Rellinger where he features upcoming music, theatre, film, and performing arts events and news from across the Kawarthas.
This week, Paul highlights Lindsay Little Theatre’s staging of Having Hope at Home, the return of Big Band Day to Millennium Park in Peterborough, the Peterborough Theatre Guild’s season-opening production of Venus in Fur, a concert by The Deep Dark Woods at The Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough, and the return of Foley’s East Coast Pub to Showplace in Peterborough.
Family mayhem opens Lindsay Little Theatre’s new season
Nurture talent, build community, and celebrate creativity — since day one more than 60 years ago, the cornerstone objectives of Lindsay Little Theatre have remained consistent.
With a new season opening Friday (September 11) at the black box theatre at 55 George Street West in Lindsay, bet on a continued focus on those aims that have served the theatre company so well over the decades.
The 2026-27 season begins with six performances of by David S. Craig’s Having Hope at Home. First staged in August 2003 at the Blyth Festival, the comedy-drama has since been produced across Canada and abroad.
Billed as “a side-splitting look at a family learning to love again,” the story takes us to a drafty farmhouse on a cold winter evening where Carolyn has but one night to cook a three-course turkey dinner, make peace with her parents, get married in her grandmother’s dress, and hide the fact that she’s in labour. That’s a lot.
Alas, Carolyn goes into labour just as her parents arrive for dinner. She can’t tell them she’s having a home birth as her father is the head of gynecology at the local hospital. She has to pretend everything is normal, including passing off the midwife as a veterinarian. Her good intentions fall apart as modern medicine meets midwifery in the midst of a family feud over just where her baby should be born. It takes some serious truth-telling and a baby’s birth to heal the rift, the result being a play that shows us how the human heart sometimes takes the long way home.
Directed by Miranda Warren, the Lindsay Little Theatre production stars Sydney Ballam as Carolyn, Nathan Copeland as Dr. Bingham, Charlotte Hayward as Dawn, Kevin Higgs as Russell, Katie Plaunt as Jane, and Reilly Smith as Michel.
Curtain for Having Hope at Home is 7 p.m. on September 11 and 12 and 18 and 19, with 2 p.m. matinee performances on September 13 and 20. General admission tickets cost $25 (plus service fee) at www.lindsaylittletheatre.com.
Big band sound returns to Peterborough’s Millennium Park
VIDEO: “It Had Better Be Tonight” by Henry Mancini – Peterborough Concert Band
If you’re a fan of the big band sound delivered live, you’ll want to be at Peterborough’s Millennium Park near the Silver Bean Café on Saturday (September 12).
That’s when the annual Big Band Day will feature performances by the Peterborough Concert Band, Knightshift, Electric City Swing, and Revelation. Sponsored by the Peterborough Concert Band and Long and McQuade, the free admission event will see gospel, swing, jazz, funk and rock music performed.
Big Band Day debuted back in 2017 in partnership with the Peterborough Downtown Business Improvement Area (DBIA) and has proven increasingly more popular over the years. The event’s musical menu will feature the sound that was very popular back in the day, but will also include a generous helping of more modern selections.
One of Canada’s oldest continuously operating community concert bands, the Peterborough Concert Band was originally formed in 1858 as the Rifle Brigade Band and became one of the finest military civilian brass bands in Ontario.
Over the years, the band has been known as the Rifle Company Band, the Rural Band, the Peterborough Fire Brigade, the 57th Regimental Band, the Peterborough Citizens’ Band, and the Peterborough Civic Concert Band, before finally becoming the Peterborough Concert Band.
Well-known former band members include Del Crary, Lorne Irwin, Herb Knox, Norman (Buzz) Buzzell, John Oosterbroek, Murray Mander, Bill Scott, Fred Huffman, and Charlie Ridpath, to name a few.
As for the other three bands performing during Big Band Day, Knightshift is conducted by Jon Knights and plays classic swing, jazz, rock ‘n’ roll and funk. Electric City Swing, as its name suggests, plays swing music as well as Latin, rock, and pop selections. Lindsay-based Revelation performs gospel and swing music.
This event is weather-dependent, so check the sky before heading out. As there is limited seating, bringing a lawn chair is advisable.
Heavy metal frenzy comes to Lindsay’s Academy Theatre courtesy of Killer Dwarfs
VIDEO: “Dirty Weapons” – Killer Dwarfs
For the polar opposite of big band music, Lindsay’s Academy Theatre is bringing us heavy metal rock courtesy of Russ Graham, Gerry Finn, Darrell Millar, and Johnny Fenton — known collectively as Killer Dwarfs — on Saturday (September 12).
Formed in Oshawa in 1981, the quartet released its self-titled Juno award-nominated debut album in 1983, but it was 1986’s ironically titled Stand Tall and its single “Keep the Spirit Alive” that, with the help of MuchMusic and MTV, that brought Killer Dwarfs wide attention. In fact, the video for “Keep the Spirit Alive” still holds the record for MTV’s most-requested independent video of all time.
Three more albums — Big Deal (1988), Dirty Weapons (1990), and Method to the Madness (1992) — followed and, combined with a lot of touring, gifted Killer Dwarfs with a very loyal following here in Canada and in the United States. Dirty Weapons was nominated for a 1991 Juno award as Best Hard Rock/Metal Album, but lost out to a pretty good band by the name of Rush.
Come 1997, the band broke up as members pursued other projects but things were back on track in 2001 in the form of a North American tour featuring Graham and Miller with Mike Hall and Ronald Mayer. In 2013, Finn was back in the mix alongside Graham and Millar, with bassist Fenton also rejoining to complete the origiinal foursome.
More than 60 years on, Killer Dwarfs remains a favourite of heavy metal fans. There’s little doubt the band’s Academy Theatre concert will stir the ghost that has long called the historic performance venue home.
Tickets to the 7:30 p.m. concert cost $43 all-in and are available at www.flatoacademytheatre.com.
Darkly comic “Venus in Fur” opens the Peterborough Theatre Guild’s new season
September brings us yet another season opener, this one marking the start of the Peterborough Theatre Guild’s six-play season at the Guild Hall on Rogers Street in East City.
Directed by Lisa Dixon, Venus in Fur opens on Friday, September 18, bringing to the stage David Ives’ darkly comic play about a frustrated director auditioning actresses for his adaptation of an erotic 19th century novel. When an apparently ill-prepared actress arrives late and persuades him to let her audition, with the director reading the other role, the balance of power shifts as the line between play and reality blurs.
Set in New York City, Ives’ story is gripping exploration of control, obsession, and the very nature of storytelling itself, featuring razor-sharp dialogue and unexpected twists.
As a two-person play, the story demands two actors who can carry the load. In Carissa Kaye and John Austin, Dixon hit upon the perfect pairing.
“Their chemistry read was phenomenal,” she told kawarthaNOW during a recent interview.
“I didn’t need to see anything else after they read together. They’re very talented. They’re very smart. They push and take risks, or they wait for me to help them take risks. Being yourself when on stage, and allowing yourself to be vulnerable, is very important.”
Venus in Fur marks Dixon’s return to the Guild, for which she directed the drama 291 last season, which also featured just two actors.
“I do like two-handers and I do like one-act plays. It was a risk submitting it to the (Guild’s) play selection committee, but I did and it got in.”
“This play is a play within a play. It’s heavy, and it’s an intellectual play. I believe that people will leave thinking for many, many days, and probably in the middle of the night, wondering what just happened.”
The play runs for 10 performances from Friday, September 18 to Saturday, October 3, with evening performances at 7:30 p.m. on September 18 and 19, 24 and 25, and October 1 to 3, and 1:30 p.m. matinee performances on September 20 and 26 and 27.
Assigned seating tickets are $30 for adults, $27 for seniors, and $20 for students and are available by phone at 705-745-4211 or online at www.peterboroughtheatreguild.com/upcoming-plays/venus-in-fur. A special two-for-one ticket promo is on for the September 18 and 19 shows.
Of note, Venus in Fur is recommended for those aged 16 and up as it contains strong language, sexual content, and themes of power, dominance, and submission. Occasional flashing light effects will be used during the performance.
The Deep Dark Woods beckon at The Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough
VIDEO: “How Could I Ever Be Single Again?” – The Deep Dark Woods
As if a wonderfully designed building that’s home to the largest and most significant collection of canoes, kayaks, and paddled watercraft isn’t enough to get our attention, the keepers of The Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough have made a habit of enticing us further with music concerts.
The Music in the Museum initiative will continue on Saturday, September 19 when The Deep Dark Woods performs in the museum’s atrium.
Now based in southern Ontario, the band was founded in Saskatoon in 2005 by singer and guitarist Ryan Boldt, bass guitarist Chris Mason, guitarist Burke Barlow, and drummer Lucas Goetz, with pianist and organist Geoff Hilhorst joining the group in 2009 after the release of their breakout album Winter Hours.
Barlow left the group in 2012 and was replaced by Clayton Linthicum, Goetz left the group in late 2014, and Mason left the group in 2017. Today, Boldt and Hilhorst are the main members of the band along with Evan Cheadle on guitar, with supporting members including Leon Power and Mike Silverman on drums, Erik Nielsen and Clayton Linthicum on bass, and Kacy Anderson on guitar and backing vocals.
Blending folk, blues, and ballads with rich storytelling, The Deep Dark Woods takes up a deep tradition of forlorn storytelling, drawing lines from Celtic folksongs to country blues and artists from John Fahey to Shirley Collins. Co-founder Ryan Boldt’s gothic surrealism is stark in detail and full of emotion, his being described as “a murder balladeer for our time.”
The Deep Dark Woods has released seven albums, but Boldt released an album in 2025 as a solo artist. In 2025, a new album, The Circle Remains, was released.
General admission tickets to the 7:30 p.m. concert are $50 (with 10 per cent off for members of the museum) and can be purchased at canoemuseum.ca.
Foley’s East Coast Pub bringing the party back to Showplace in Peterborough
The Foley family is at it again, and we’re once again invited along for the ride.
Foley’s East Coast Pub returns to Showplace’s Cogeco Studio on Sunday, September 30. Promoted as “two hours of music, laughs, and stories from Canada’s East Coast and the Maritimes,” the longstanding kitchen party (minus the kitchen) offers up sea shanties, folk ballads, and songs about sailing vessels, ghosts, pirates, and coal mines.
As has always been the case, “Seanchai” Hugh Foley — a gifted storyteller of considerable skill, wit, and knowledge — will hold court, with music by the Celtic Pub Band comprised of Fiddlin’ Jay Edmunds, Ron Kervin, Andrew Martin, Theresa Foley, Sheila Prophet, Norma Curtis, along ith additional guest performers in the mix.
Foley’s East Coast Pub remains as fun as it gets on a Sunday in September. The fact that it perennially sells out is proof of that. Visit www.showplace.org for tickets to the 2 or 7 p.m. staging as soon as you can or risk being on the outside looking in. Tickets cost $30, $15 for students.
Encore
- Join me in wishing Peterborough’s Elyse Saunders nothing but good things come September 12. That’s the night that the Mississauga Music Awards will be handed out for a 10th year, with Saunders nominated as Artist of the Year along with Triumph, illScarlett, and The Dreamboats — the latter having closed out Musicfest’s summer season a few weeks back. But wait, there’s more. Saunders is also in the mix for Song of the Year alongside illScarlett, Jade Hilton. and Alexis Martinez. Saunders, whose latest single is “Cowboy Up,” was her typically busy self over the summer months, making several appearances on the festival circuit. Speaking of which, she will be performing a hometown show at The Venue in downtown Peterborough on October 9.
- Since its founding in 2002, the Kawartha Youth Orchestra has performed more than 70 concerts while supporting more than 700 young musicians. With registration now open for the 2026-27 season, a meet-and-greet with orchestra lead conductors and staff is set for September 20, from noon to 1:30 p.m., at the New Canadians Centre at Romaine and Aylmer streets. If you have burning questions about the program, or are simply curious, this is the place to get answers. Meanwhile, for more information about the programs offered, and to register, visit thekyo.ca.
