In 1992, theatre producer Randy Read appeared in a professional production of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town in the role of Constable Warren.

“Every single night before I went on stage, I got this inner feeling of doing something important and bringing something of real value to the audience,” Randy recalls.

“More than any other time in my career I felt that nobody had big roles and nobody had small roles. We were all part of this ensemble. This group was bringing something simple, yet profound to the audience. And I would be filled with this extreme emotion of having taken people on a journey that had some relevance and importance. You don’t feel that all the time. ”

Now, 25 years later, Randy is about to take local audiences back to Grover’s Corners when New Stages Theatre Company presents Our Town at the Market Hall in downtown Peterborough from April 28th to May 6th.

Written in 1938 by American playwright and novelist Thornton Wilder, Our Town has often been called one of the greatest American plays ever written (it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1938). The play examines the changing lives of two families, the Webbs and Gibbs, and the fictional small town of Grover’s Corners in 1901, 1904, and 1913.

Our Town is a metatheatrical production, breaking the fourth wall. A character called “The Stage Manager” presents the play to the audience, describing daily life in the small town, introducing scenes, and even summoning and dismissing other characters. In addition, there are virtually no props or sets.

“The first act is about familial love, the second act is about romantic love, and the third act is about spiritual love,” Randy explains. “It’s a reminder to all of us about how extraordinary it is to be a human being, and how extraordinary the little things we take for granted every day in our lives really are.

“For me, it’s such a celebration of humanity and how we grow and how we don’t grow. I mean, the First World War was the war to end wars, but look what has happened since.”

Our Town will also be Randy’s return to the stage after a long absence, where he will be playing the key role of The Stage Manager. Although he was set to originally co-direct the show, Randy has passed the director role to local favourite Linda Kash.

“Originally I was going to direct the show and play the stage manager, and I brought Linda Kash in to direct the scenes that I wasn’t in,” Randy says. “But I got very sick with pneumonia this winter, so I asked Linda at that point if she’d take over as the full-time director, and I’d just be an actor.

“Although I’m better now, I’m glad I made that decision. It allows me to just concentrate on my role as an actor, and it also is better for the rest of the cast because they hear one voice instead of two.

“Linda is very wonderfully specific about what she wants. It’s wonderful as an actor to have a director who is not only so specific, but also articulate what she wants. I’m really thrilled that she agreed to do it.”

Although New Stages’ productions have traditionally had very compact casts, Our Town has a large cast of 19 performers. In the starring role of George Gibbs is actor Matthew Finlan, who just finished performing the same role in the Toronto production of Our Town at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre.

Playing opposite Finlan is Bethany Heemskerk in the role of Emily Webb. The rest of the world of Grover’s Corners is populated with many of Peterborough’s most recognized performers including Allison McIllwain, Tom Quinn, Megan Murphy, Andrew Root, Luke Foster, Patricia Maitland, and Wyatt Lamoureux.

“This will be very different than what New Stages normally does because it’s more of a community effort, and the majority of the cast are not professionals,” Randy says. “We cast more with an eye to people being really right for the part — people who had a sort of realness about them.

“Sometimes when people do a lot of theatre, they can develop a sort of superficiality about them. We weren’t looking for that. Even if someone hadn’t acted before, if there was something about them that was genuine to bring to the table, we were more interested in that.”

Stating that Our Town has been on his bucket list of shows to do for some time, Randy refers to growing up in nearby Mount Pleasant as inspiration.

“Part of what drew me to this play is that I grew up in a village of 150 people,” Randy explains. “These people had no guile. Everybody knew everything about each other. You couldn’t put on any airs in that village. So you couldn’t pretend to be anything you weren’t.

“That is interesting to me because, as Jane Jacobs once said, the whole world is a bunch of Our Towns. Even with us individually, we tend to deal with the same people from one day to the next. Those people are our Our Towns.

“I want to make people realize that so much is changing, our world is changing constantly. Everywhere we go people are tuned into electronical devices. Nobody talks to each other. For me, this play is more relevant now than ever, as a reminder of the importance of the pure humanity we have the potential to lose if electronics and cell phones take over our lives.

“My husband Steve (Ross) once said to me ‘Everybody should see Our Town once every ten years’. It reminds them to live their lives fully, and how fully they are already living them to some extent. It may not be edgy, but it’s an extremely powerful play. This show isn’t really about saying ‘Weren’t things nice and simpler?’ We say things under the surface, in a way that is not preaching.”

With a cast and production team of some of Peterborough’s favourite performers in a classic drama that has endured with audiences for decades, expectations for Our Town are high. This show could potentially be one of the best that Peterborough will see this year.

Our Town runs at Market Hall Performing Arts Centre (140 Charlotte St., Peterborough) from Friday, April 28th to Saturday, May 6th at 8 p.m., except for a 2 p.m. matinee on Sunday, April 30th (there is no performance on Monday, May 1st).

Tickets are $28 general admission and $15 for students or artsworkers, and can be purchased at the Market Hall Box Office, by calling 705-749-1146, or online at www.markethall.org. Tickets are also available (cash only) at Moondance (425 George St. N., Peterborough, 705-742-9425).

If you were watching the latest episode of the hit ABC television series Designated Survivor on April 12th, you may have noticed a familiar face (and voice): Dan Duran, who local radio fans will recall from his morning radio show on Magic 96.7 (now Oldies 96.7) which he co-hosted with Linda Kash and Deb Crossen.

Dan appears near the beginning of the episode as White House reporter Joel Estevez, who asks the President (played by fellow Canadian Kiefer Sutherland) about a proposed gun control bill.

VIDEO: Dan Duran in Designated Survivor

Dan tells kawarthaNOW that his character will appear again in a later episode this season.

If you aren’t familiar with the show, Designated Survivor tells the story of Tom Kirkman (Kiefer Sutherland), a low-level cabinet member who is suddenly appointed President of the United States after a catastrophic attack on the US Capitol during the State of the Union. Kirkman struggles to keep the country and his family from falling apart, while navigating volatile politics and leading the search to find who is responsible for the attack.

Currently in its first season, the series is shot in Toronto and airs on CTV in Canada (on CTV affiliate CHEX in Peterborough).

Dan’s former co-host on Magic 96.7, Linda Kash, is also playing a recurring role in a hit TV series. As kawarthaNOW reported in February, Linda is in the third season of FX’s Fargo, which premieres on Wednesday, April 19th

Also, as kawarthanNOW first reported on April 16th, Dan is also joining CHEX TV in Peterborough as its new weather analyst — his first return to local broadcasting since 2015. Dan will be doing weather for the station at 6 and 11 p.m. beginning today (April 18).

“Dan is a big personality who will bring a warm smile to cold days and a cool delivery to every heat wave,” says Jay Westman, News Director, CHEX & CKWS. “We’re proud to be able to add someone with his talents, experience and local perspective to CHEX.”

Dan is best known as the former co-anchor of the Canadian entertainment news series ENow. He was also the first producer of the Humble and Fred morning radio show in Toronto from 1989 to 1994 (you can still hear him on the show, which now broadcasts on SiriusXM and is available as a podcast) and also co-hosted The Dini Petty Show.

As well as having a recurring role as the ill-fated “Man from Protected” in the well-received Canadian television series Cra$h & Burn, Dan has appeared in many other TV shows and films. You can see the long list of his other acting credits on IMDB.

Born in Vancouver and raised in rural Alberta, Dan started his career in broadcasting in Edmonton, with subsequent moves to Lloydminster, Moose Jaw, San Francisco, Vancouver, and Toronto. A regular cottager at Lovesick Lake for 18 years, he moved to Mount Pleasant in 2009.

In May 2011, he was announced as the morning show host on Magic 96.7 (CJWV-FM) when it launched as a new radio station in Peterborough, Ontario. His co-host was actor Linda Kash and morning newswomen Deb Crossen. The Magic 96.7 morning show ran until late August 2015, when the station’s ownership was purchased by My Broadcasting from Pine Ridge Broadcasting.

Every Thursday, we publish live music and performance events at pubs and clubs in Peterborough and The Kawarthas based on information that venues provide to us directly or post on their website or social media channels. Here are the listings for the week of Thursday, April 13 to Wednesday, April 19.

If you’re a pub or club owner and want to be included in our weekly listings, please email our Nightlife Editor at nightlife@kawarthanow.com.

Last October, Ryan Kerr of The Theatre On King (TTOK) presented a brilliant production of playwright Eugène Ionesco’s avant-garde masterpiece The Bald Soprano. One of the best shows that TTOK presented in 2016, the strange nonsense play delighted the audience and was filled with big laughs.

This weekend, Ryan revisits Ionesco with a double shot of his short plays, Maid to Marry and The Leader, in a night filled with more screwball weirdness via the weird and wonderful mind of a comedy genius.

One of the greats of the “theatre of the absurd,” Ionesco made an art form of pointing out the banality and ridiculousness of ordinary life and unnecessary talk or description. His plays, although wordy, make little sense despite the fact that the audience can recognize the archetypes and situations depicted on the stage.

The result is brilliant, but hard to put into words. It really is something that you just need to see for yourself.

Although I am not usually fond of the theatre of the absurd, Ionesco’s sense of comedy is so random that I find it ridiculously funny and clever. To put it frankly, while watching Kerr’s latest round of Ionesco, I laughed until I could barely breathe. It really is that funny.

The plots of Maid to Marry and The Leader are so simple to explain that it may seem like there isn’t much to the shows, but what you really need to come and see is the bizarre wordplay and surreal performances by an exceptional cast. What I’m holding back are the punchlines of the shows. Yes, there are punchlines and they are both very funny.

Maid to Marry features the talents of Meg O’Sullivan and Matt Gilbert as two people sitting in the park talking about memories of the past and the banality of the present … is it the banality of the past and the memories of the present? Honestly, I’m not sure, nor do I think the couple on stage are either. One audience member said he got it, but I didn’t bother asking him what it all meant. Whether I was lost in the dialogue or not doesn’t matter. It’s just really funny stuff.

Meg O’Sullivan is a woman who wants to marry off her educated daughter and tries to impress Matt Gilbert, a self-indulgent pompous intellect who seems to rant about nothing. The woman agrees with him, although often contradicting the entire discussion. However, the contradictions don’t seem to matter because Gilbert is barely listening. He continues to yammer like a self-indulgent ass. It’s 20 minutes of “mansplaining” turned into an art form.

Although this may not seem like a funny situation, Ionesco is poking fun at both small talk and intellectualism. Matt and Meg really play up their roles: Matt as the pompous fool who loves the sound of his own voice, and Meg as the woman who really doesn’t know what’s going on but delights when she is right.

It’s truly a funny performance by both actors who bring on the comedic gold in every line and every facial expression. But it’s the surprise ending that’s the real kicker to the piece and gets the biggest laughs of all.

The Leader is a much more topical and political show that takes a humorous look at fanaticism and the blind adoration of celebrity and politicians.

Lindsay Unterlander gives a hilarious performance as a cheerleader with her two underlings, played by Meg O’Sullivan and Matt Gilbert, who wait in a secluded spot for “The Leader” to come by. As Meg and Matt hide, Lindsay gives play-by-play commentary of everything The Leader does.

As one would expect in an Ionesco production, that commentary goes from the banal to the bizarre, or perhaps the bizarrely banal. Whatever the case, the audience doesn’t get the time to decide before the cheerleader and her gang are off and running.

Meanwhile, in a ridiculous nonsensical subplot, two lovers played by Dan Smith and Roybn Smith prance around the park playing a cat-and-mouse game with one another. Why is this happening? Well, that’s anybody’s interpretation — but when their love affair smacks into the middle of the cheerleader’s activities, confused hilarity ensues.

Lindsay Unterlander is brilliant as the head cheerleader. Adorable and obnoxious simultaneously, she gives a fun performance despite having her back to the audience nearly the entire time. Staging like that would make most audiences shudder, for this show it works.

Two questions that remain throughout The Leader is just who the mysterious Leader is and whether he will ever arrive. Again, you’ll need to be in the audience to find out, but what I’ll say is that the build up is well worth it. The end of The Leader is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen at TTOK.

I want to commend each of the players in these two shows. It’s difficult to give shout-outs and go into specifics of the shows without giving away surprises and big laughs, so all I’ll say is that each of the actors bring a lot of mirth and mayhem to the stage in their individual roles. I really am in love with this cast.

TTOK has made me a huge fan of Eugène Ionesco’s absurdist comedies. They are very silly and dialogue heavy, with characters who are utterly ridiculous. For those who are not familiar with the playwright, a solid line could be drawn between Ionesco to Monty Python and to Napoleon Dynamite. It’s that kind of humour.

If that’s the thing that appeals to you, then you do not want to miss this fun night out to TTOK. If it isn’t, then take a chance on it anyway. Brilliantly performed and directed, Maid to Marry and The Leader should be a priority this holiday weekend, between doing the family dinner and eating the chocolate eggs. This show is a true winner.

The Leader and Maid to Marry run for three performances at TTOK in downtown Peterborough: Friday, April 14th at 8 p.m., and Saturday, April 15th at 2 p.m. and again at 8 p.m. Admission is $10 at the door or pay what you can.