Every Thursday, we publish live music events at pubs and restaurants in Peterborough and the greater Kawarthas region 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, August 10 to Wednesday, August 16.

If you’re a pub or restaurant owner and want to be included in our weekly listings, please email our nightlifeNOW editor at nightlife@kawarthanow.com. For concerts and live music events at other venues, check out our Concerts & Live Music page.

With the exception of karaoke, we only list events with performing musicians. Venues may also host other events during the week (e.g., dancing, DJs, comedy shows).

Peterborough Theatre Guild has announced its 2023-24 season, featuring six plays between September and May — including a brand new work written by Peterborough actor Hugh MacMillan — as well as seven staged readings.

“Through the power of live theatre, let us continue to connect and share in the magic of storytelling,” reads a media release. “We cannot wait see you back at the Peterborough Theatre Guild.”

The 2023-24 season kicks off at the end of September with God of Carnage, a black comedy by French playwright Yasmina Reza. When two sets of parents decide to meet after a playground altercation between their sons, what begins as a civilized discussion soon devolves into chaos. This Tony award-winning play was made into a 2011 film directed by Roman Polanski.

Directed by Bea Quarrie and produced by Ina Stenner, God of Carnage runs at the Guild Hall from September 29 to October 14, with performances at 7:30 p.m. on September 29 and 30, October 5 to 7, and October 12 to 14, and 2 p.m. matinee performances on October 1 and 8.

In November, the Peterborough Theatre Guild will present the premiere of Paradiso Inn, a new comedy by Peterborough actor Hugh MacMillan. The Paradiso Inn has seen better days, and the friendly staff are always looking for innovative ways to improve their customer ratings. Enter a middle-age couple on a cycling getaway hoping to enhance their relationship, an unimpressed tourist official, and a n’er-do-well young adult who upsets everyone’s applecart. All are challenged to take an alternative view of their lives in this an enlightening comedy full of hope and wonder.

Directed by Hugh MacMillan and Mark Gray and produced by Margaret Monis, Paradiso Inn runs at the Guild Hall from November 3 to 18, with performances at 7:30 p.m. on November 3 and 4, November 9 to 11, and November 16 to 18, and 2 p.m. matinee performances on November 5 and 12.

Next up in December is Todd Wallinger’s family play The Enchanted Bookshop, set in a struggling bookstore called A Likely Story where literary characters come to life at night. Six of those characters — Dorothy Gale, Robin Hood, Pollyanna, Sherlock Holmes, Heidi, and Tom Sawyer — long to help Margie, the store’s scatterbrained owner, but they will disappear if they are seen by human eyes or try to leave the store. Things get even more complicated when a pair of smugglers come into the store looking for a stolen necklace hidden inside one of the books.

Directed by Sarah Rogers and produced by Marion Griffin with assistant producer Hayley Griffin-Montgomery, The Enchanted Bookshop runs at the Guild Hall from December 1 to 10 with performances at 7:30 p.m. on December 1, 5, 7, and 8 and 2 p.m. matinee performances on December 2 and 3 and 9 and 10.

Peterborough Theatre Guild welcomes the new year in February with a production of the Tony award-winning musical Fiddler on the Roof, with music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and book by Joseph Stein. Set in early 20th-century Russia, the story centres on Tevye, a poor milkman with five daughters in the village of Anatevka. He attempts to maintain his Jewish religious and cultural traditions as outside influences encroach upon his family’s lives. He must cope with the strong-willed actions of his three older daughters who wish to marry for love, with their choices of husbands successively less palatable for Tevye. An edict of the tsar eventually evicts the Jews from their village.

Directed by Jerry Allen and produced by Pat Hooper, Fiddler on the Roof runs at Showplace Performance Centre from February 16 to 24, with performances at 7:30 p.m. on February 16 and 17 and 21 to 24 and 2 p.m. matinee performances on February 18 and 25.

March will see a production of Willow Quartet by Canadian playwright Joan Burrows. In the aftermath of a tragedy that ends her marriage, Kim finds herself back in her childhood home on a quiet farm away from the city where she invites visiting musician Jim to stay with her in a bed-and-breakfast arrangement. While her infatuation with Jim makes her forget her grief temporarily, it inevitably boils to the surface and she struggles to come to terms with her buried feelings.

Directed by Tami Whitley and produced by Marilyn Robinson, Willow Quartet runs at the Guild Hall from March 15 to 30, with performances at 7:30 p.m. on March 15 and 16, 21 to 22, and 28 to 30 and matinee performances at 2 p.m. on March 17 and 24.

The final production of Peterborough Theatre Guild’s 2023-24 season is Girl in the Goldfish Bowl, a Governor General’s Award-winning comedic play by Canadian playwright Morris Panych.

Set in British Columbia in 1962, it tells the story of a young girl named Iris who believes the world has been held together by her pet goldfish and that his death has led both to the disintegration of her parents’ marriage and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Almost immediately after her pet’s death, Iris finds a man washed up on the beach and thinks he is the reincarnation of the goldfish. She brings the stranger back to her home, pinning all her messianic hopes on his well-being.

Directed by 4th Line Theatre’s Kim Blackwell and produced by Beth McMaster and Kate Suhr, Girl in the Goldfish Bowl runs at the Guild Hall from May 3 to 18 with performances at 7:30 p.m. on May 3 and 4, 9 to 11, and 16 to 18 and matinee performances at 2 p.m. on May 5 and 12.

Subscriptions for all six plays and all seven staged readings, or for any four plays (except The Enchanted Bookshop) and four staged readings, are available now for a range of prices at peterboroughtheatreguild.com.

Single tickets for each production will go on sale closer to the run dates. With the exception of Fiddler on the Roof and The Enchanted Bookshop, tickets are $30 for adults, $27 for seniors, and $20 for adults. Tickets for Fiddler on the Roof are $37 for adults, $33 for seniors, and $25 for students. Tickets for The Enchanted Bookshop are $15 for everyone

In addition to the six full productions, the Peterborough Theatre Guild will also produce seven staged readings, where actors perform plays without sets or costumes. Titles and dates of these performances at the Guild Hall will be announced throughout the 2023-24 season. The single-ticket cost for a staged reading is $12 for everyone.

kawarthaNOW is proud to be a media sponsor of the Peterborough Theatre Guild’s 2023-24 season.

Back in the early 1990s, two brothers from London, Ontario acted on their shared love of the blues, performing and recording with a number of blues, R&B, and pop music acts.

They learned well, sharing the stage with the likes of Buddy Guy, BB King, the late Jeff Healey, and the Downchild Blues Band, to mention but a few.

1994 brought the question ‘Can two talented real-life brothers, both singers and multi-instrumentalists, do justice to the sound and unique persona of the late John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd — The Blues Brothers — and make a living from the venture?’

Chris and Geoff Dahl could and did, subsequently taking their Soul Brothers show on the road, headlining at festivals and arenas around the world and, in 2005, teaming up with producer Bernhard Kurz to create and perform as part of the the R&B tribute musical comedy I’m A Soul Man.

But another question arose — if it worked once, why not again?

On Saturday (August 12) at Del Crary Park, the answer will be clear as the Dahl brothers, joined by drummer Perry Weido, perform as the ZZ Top tribute act Fandango. Admission to the 8 p.m. Peterborough Musicfest concert is free.

Sporting the trademark full beards, sunglasses and costumes so closely identified with ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill, the Dahl brothers actually launched their tribute to the Texas trio about the same time as their Blues Brother tribute.

VIDEO: Chris & Geoff Dahl performing as the ‘Soul Brothers’ Blues Brothers tribute

As Fandango, they joined the cast of Legends Alive, a touring rock and pop music concert production that played before audiences across Canada and the United States. They also enjoyed short residencies in Las Vegas and Myrtle Beach.

While the brothers put most of their energy into their Soul Brothers show, Fandango was never out of the picture, ready to be repurposed and revived as circumstances dictated. Fandango (the band’s name is a nod to ZZ Top’s 1975 album of the same name) is now back in earnest, playing venues, casinos and festivals across North America.

Audiences are treated to ZZ Top’s blues-infused hits and captivating stage presence, reminding them why ‘that little band from Texas’ was widely heralded as the coolest band in the world.

Formed in 1969 in Houston by guitarist Billy Gibbons, bassist Dusty Hill and drummer Frank Beard came into the picture a year later.

Over the next 50 years, the trio remained intact, with Hill’s death in 2021 ending that remarkable run. By that time, ZZ Top had earned the distinction of being the longest-running band with an unchanged lineup in the history of popular music.

Starting in 1971 with ZZ Top’s First Album, the trio recorded and released 15 albums, selling an estimated 50 million albums worldwide. In 2004, ZZ Top was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame while Gibbons, in 2015, was named the 32nd greatest guitarist of all time by Rolling Stone magazine.

VIDEO: “Gimme All Your Lovin” – ZZ Top

VIDEO: “Sharp Dressed Man” – ZZ Top

VIDEO: “La Grange” – ZZ Top

VIDEO: “Tush” – ZZ Top

Although ZZ Top’s albums Tres Hombres (1973) and Fandango! (1975) produced the singles “La Grange” and “Tush”, which gained extensive radio airplay, the band enjoyed its greatest commercial success after Gibbons and Hill rebranded ZZ Top in 1979 with a new musical direction and image, featuring sunglasses and matching chest-length beards.

They established a more mainstream sound and rose to international stardom with their records Eliminator (1983) and Afterburner (1985), producing music videos for their hits “Gimme All Your Lovin’,” “Sharp Dressed Man,” and “Legs” that gave them mass exposure on television channel MTV.

But for all their talent as musicians, ZZ Top was, and remains, a band that is meant to be experienced live. Showmen in every respect, Gibbons and Hill were in perfect sync with one another and their music. Now Hill’s big shoes are being filled by longtime band guitar tech Elwood Francis and ZZ Top is still touring, co-headlining this summer with Lynyrd Skynyrd on The Sharp Dressed Man Simple Man Tour.

Overseen by general manager Tracey Randall and staff, a board of directors, and numerous volunteers, Peterborough Musicfest’s stated mission remains “to provide diverse, affordable live music to enrich cultural and economic prosperity in our community.”

For more information on this concert and the entire 2023 season, visit www.ptbomusicfest.ca or phone the Peterborough Musicfest office at 705-755-1111.

kawarthaNOW is proud to be a headline sponsor of Peterborough Musicfest’s 2023 season.

Port Hope’s Capitol Theatre is closing its summer season with a reinvented production of the award-winning horror-comedy rock musical Little Shop of Horrors, running for 27 performances from August 11 to September 3.

Directed by the Capitol’s artistic director Rob Kempson, the production stars Amir Haidar as Seymour, Tahirih Vejdani as Audrey, Tyler Murree as Mr. Mushnik, Michael De Rose as Orin, Chris Tsujiuchi as Audrey II, Michelle Yu as Crystal, Taylor Lovelace as Ronnette, Sierra Holder as Chiffon, with Joel Cumber as puppeteer and musicians David Schotzko, Gabriela Laconsay, and Matt Ray performing live music.

“For me, Little Shop of Horrors is the ultimate in camp classic — which feels like the perfect tone for a mid-summer musical,” Kempson says in an August interview with Keith Tomasek for Stratford Festival Reviews. “Our approach to everything at the Capitol is the spirit of reinvention though, so this will be a Little Shop unlike any that you’ve seen or heard before. The goal is to honour the parts of the legacy that speak to us now, without feeling bound by those traditional approaches.”

Original premiering off-Broadway in 1982, the musical is loosely based on the cult low-budget 1960 black comedy film of the same name directed by Roger Corman and notable for a young Jack Nicholson’s small role in the film as a masochistic dental patient (he was 23 years old at the time).

With music by Alan Menken and lyrics and a book by Howard Ashman, the musical follows a hapless florist shop worker named Seymour, secretly in love with his co-worker Audrey, who finds and raises a mysterious plant. After naming the plant Audrey II after his secret love, he discovers it feeds on human blood and flesh.

Menken composed the music for Little Shop of Horrors in the style of early 1960s rock and roll, doo-wop, and early Motown. The Grammy-nominated score includes several well-known tunes including the title song, “Skid Row (Downtown)”, “Somewhere That’s Green”, and “Suddenly, Seymour”.

The musical has since become popular with community theatre groups because of its relatively small cast. A theatrical version of Little Shop of Horrors was released in 1986, directed by Frank Oz starring Rick Moranis, Ellen Green, Vincent Gardenia, Steve Martin, and the voice of Levi Stubbs as the flesh-eating plant. It received two Academy Award nominations, one for best original song and one for best visual effects.

“Most people know Little Shop from the 1980s movie or a community production,” director Kempson says in a media release. “I wanted to create a fresh, full-scale version for the Capitol, bringing in some of the country’s most talented actors, designers, and musicians to make our biggest show of the summer an unforgettable night at the theatre.”

Several of the cast and crew in the Capitol’s production have connections with the Stratford Festival. Tahirih Vejdani (Audrey) has appeared in Stratford Festival productions including HMS Pinafore and Treasure Island, costume designer Joshua Quinlan worked on this year’s drama Casey and Diana, and lighting designer Michelle Ramsay worked on Women of the Fur Trade. Choreographer Genny Sermonia has appeared in several Stratford Festival productions, including West Side Story, and choreographed Gypsy on now at the Shaw Festival.

Along with Quinlan, Ramsay, and Sermonia, other creatives behind the scenes include Jeff Newberry (music direction), Haneul Yi (assistant music direction), Deanna H. Choi (sound design), and Brandon Kleiman (set design).

Kleiman, who previously designed the sets for the Capitol productions 9 to 5: The Musical and most recently The Ballad of Stompin’ Tom, is a multiple Dora Award nominee and two-time winner. This summer, his set design can also be seen in Rent at the Stratford Festival and The Sound of Music at Thousand Islands Playhouse.

“The set design for Little Shop embraces the world of the mid-century horror slash b-movies, from which the original film and musical took its inspiration as well,” Kleiman says. “From there, I’ve turned up the volume on the shapes and colours because our horror movie is also a campy musical comedy with a heart of gold. The story is outrageous and the design has to follow suit.”

“Some highlights for Port Hope audiences will be the four puppets we use to Audrey II to life,” Kleiman adds. “As well, I hope seeing the live band above the shop will be a thrill — all the music is live.”

Little Shop of Horrors runs at the Capitol at 20 Queen Street in Port Hope from August 11 to September 3. Evening performances take place at 8 p.m. on Friday, August 11th (preview night) and Saturday, August 12th (opening night) as well as August 16 to 19, 23 to 26, and August 30 to September 2. Matinee performances take place at 2 p.m. on August 14, 15 and 16, 19 and 20, 22 and 23, 26 and 27, 29 and 30, and September 2 and 3.

Tickets are $48 ($40 for those under 30) plus fees and are available in person at the Capitol box office (open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday to Saturday), by phone at 905-885-1071, or online at capitoltheatre.com.