Bobcaygeon’s Globus Theatre is launching its fall season with “Comedy October” — two must-see stand-up and improv comedy shows led by two of Canada’s most well-known comediennes, Jennine Profeta and Linda Kash.

“Comedy October” kicks off with Jennine Profeta’s all-female comedy ensemble “Girls Nite Out” returning to the Lakeview Arts Barn on Friday and Saturday (October 21 and 22).

The show originated 15 years ago, the brainchild of Second City alumna and Bobcaygeon resident Profeta and her long-time colleague and Globus’s artistic director Sarah Quick, as part of Globus Theatre’s second season. Since then, the show had toured across Canada with a revolving cast of Canadian Comedy Award Winners and CBC comedy regulars, including Profeta and most recently Elvira Kurt, Diana Frances, and Karen Parker.

The following Saturday (October 29), Peterborough’s Klusterfork Entertainment — founded by Linda Kash along with Pat Maitland and Ian Burns — makes its debut at the Lakeview Arts Barn with “Klusterfork’s Hilarious Hallowe’en.”

Led by Kash — best known as Canada’s original Philly Cream Cheese Angel and for her roles in Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, Seinfeld, Fargo, and many more — the show will feature some of Canada’s most beloved comedic improvisors creating characters and scenes from thin air following suggestions from the audience.

All three comedy performances include an optional pre-show dinner and, for audience members who want to try their hand at improv, an optional masterclass led by one of the performers featuring tips, tricks, and improv games. No experience is necessary. The masterclass takes place from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. on the evening of the performance at Globus’s downtown Bobcaygeon box office location at 90 Bolton Street.

Tickets for each performance are $42.50 (show only), $57.50 (masterclass and show), $87.50 (dinner and show), or $102.50 (masterclass, dinner, and show). All prices are subject to HST and a $2 ticket fee.

Tickets are available online at globustheatre.com or by calling the box office at 705-738-2037.

After Comedy October, Globus Theatre’s fall season continues with Murder at the Match: A World Cup Murder Mystery from November 17 to 26 and Cinderella – A Traditional British Panto from December 8 to 18.

A book by Peterborough theatre artist and writer Kate Story has been named a finalist for the 2022 Governor General’s Literary Awards.

The Canada Council for the Arts announced the 70 finalists in 14 categories in English and French on Wednesday (October 12), with Story’s young adult novel Urchin one of the five finalists in the English language young people’s literature category.

As a finalist, Story receives $1,000. The winners of each category, to be announced on November 16, will each receive $25,000, with the publisher of each winning book receiving $3,000 to promote the book.

Published in fall 2021 by Running the Goat Books and Broadsides, Urchin is a historical fantasy set in early 20th-century Newfoundland that tells the tale of 13-year-old Dorthea, who adopts a new identity as a boy named Jack to go undercover and investigate the activities of Italian scientist Marconi, who has arrived in St. John’s to receive the first wireless trans-Atlantic radio signal. The story also delves into the relationship between Dor and her mother, Dor’s love for her friend Clare, and mysterious fairies known as the Little Strangers.

In a 2021 interview with Lynette Adams for CBC News, Story credits Marnie Parsons of Running the Goat for the initial motivation for Urchin.

“She said, very specifically, she wanted me to write young adult fantasy, set in Newfoundland, historical, with fairies, and I was thrilled,” said Story, who spent her childhood in St. John’s in the 1970s. “I think I took a lot from my own life and transplanted it back 70 years, to be Dor.”

“(I) never thought I’d see the day when a book featuring a misfit genderqueer kid from the Southside Road would be a finalist for a big award,” Story wrote on Facebook after finding out Urchin was named a Governor General’s Literary Award finalist.

Story has little time to bask in the glow of her latest accomplishment, however. Not only is she director, dramaturge, and project manager for Sarah McNeilly’s sold-out Titty Cakes: A Recipe for Radical Acceptance running from October 19th to 23rd, but her own new performance piece Anxiety is set to premiere at The Theatre On King for a seven-performance run beginning November 24th.

Presented by Public Energy Performing Arts, Anxiety is Story’s retelling of the Old English epic poem Beowulf. She skilfully weaves the poem into a humorous, poignant, and honest exploration of her own story growing up the as daughter of a famed Newfoundland lexicographer.

Story’s father George, who passed away in 1994, pioneered the study of Newfoundland history, culture, language, and literature, including through his work on the Dictionary of Newfoundland English.

In Anxiety, Story examines the history of the English language and the roots of white supremacy as she seeks to understand her place in a modern world seemingly gone mad.

For more information about Anxiety and for tickets, visit publicenergy.ca/performance/anxiety/.

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, October 13 to Wednesday, October 19.

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.

The Lakefield Literary Festival is presenting a public screening of an award-winning documentary on Canadian literary giant Margaret Atwood in November as a fundraiser for the annual festival, which is returning in 2023 after a three-year absence due to the pandemic.

Margaret Atwood: A Word after a Word after a Word is Power will be shown in the Bryan Jones Theatre at Lakefield College School at 7 p.m. on Sunday, November 13th. Tickets are $15 in advance at lakefieldliteraryfestival.com or at the door. Proof of vaccination will be required at the door, with masking optional.

Produced by White Pine Pictures, the 2019 documentary was directed and produced by Peter Raymont and Nancy Lang, who will be attending the screening to introduce the film and will also be available following the screening for a question-and-answer session.

Named after a line from the poem “Spelling” in Atwood’s 1981 True Stories collection, the documentary sees a film crew follow the then-80-year-old Atwood and her now-late partner Graeme Gibson over the course of a year, as they jet to speaking engagements around the world, take a family holiday, and visit the set of The Handmaid’s Tale — the Emmy award-winning Hulu series based on Atwood’s book of the same name that made her even more of a household name — where Atwood meets with lead actor Elisabeth Moss and Ane Crabtree, the designer of the blood-red robes now worn by protesters around the world.

The film delves into Atwood’s backstory, including her childhood spent in the Canadian wilderness, her early days at Harvard and as a poet, and how she came to meet Gibson and write The Handmaid’s Tale. Atwood is seen working on the final chapters of The Testaments — the highly anticipated sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale that went on to win the 2019 Booker Prize — on planes, on boats, and on the road. Atwood’s closest friends and family share stories, as does the author herself.

Atwood’s major works are also explored throughout the film, revealing the personal and societal factors that informed her writing, with actor Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law) reading Atwood’s poetry and prose.

VIDEO: “Margaret Atwood: A Word after a Word after a Word is Power” trailer

Margaret Atwood: A Word after a Word after a Word is Power has won numerous awards, including the 2021 People’s Choice Award at the Hudson Film Festival and 2020 Best Documentary Feature at the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival.

Originally established in 1995 as a celebration of Margaret Laurence, who lived in Lakefield until her death in 1987 — and also commemorating Lakefield’s rich literary heritage with two of Canada’s most important 19th-century writers, sisters Catharine Parr Traill and Susanna Moodie, having lived in the area — the Lakefield Literary Festival showcases Canadian authors and promotes the joy of reading and writing among children and adults.

The festival celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2019, and has been on hiatus since then due to the pandemic. It will return in July 2023.