Thirty-six years after the Peterborough Folk Festival was first organized in 1989, it has grown into so much more than a music festival; it’s become a four-day community event that shows the best of the region’s music — and its generosity.

Despite its growth, the festival, which will run from August 14 to 17 this year, remains entirely admission-free — making it one of only two remaining admission-free folk festivals in Ontario. If that’s not impressive enough, the event is exclusively run by volunteers.

“Because we’re such a community-oriented event, we do have our values and we live by those, and I think that’s really part of why the festival has remained so strong in our 36 years,” says festival chair Rob Davis.

“We really do fall back on our strengths, and we work hard to put them in place — environmental sustainability, diversity and inclusion in the lineup and audiences, support for children and families, support for local artists, and connecting with First Nations nearby,” Davis adds. “All of that is important to us.”

Now headed into his third festival as chair, Davis spent many years enjoying the festival from the audience since he attended for the first time in 1999, shortly after unpacking his bags after moving to Peterborough.

“I remember thinking, what a cool town this is to be able to pull something like this off as a free-admission community event, with happy people everywhere, a really chill atmosphere, great music, and friends meeting up with friends,” he recalls.

“I’ve lived in lots of other places across the province and across the country, and stuff like this does not happen in other places — nothing like the scale of what we do as a free-admission festival with Peterborough Folk Festival.”

According to the festival’s artistic director Ryan Kemp, who attends conferences with other music festival organizers from across the country, the Peterborough Folk Festival is highly “respected by peers” in the industry. Perhaps that comes as no surprise, given that it brings in $1.3 million in economic impact for the city through its 15,000 attendees each year.

“From our surveys, there’s a lot of people from out of town so it’s great to bring them to Peterborough and say, ‘Have you been to the Peterborough Zoo, or have you been to the Lift Lock, or the Canoe Museum?'” says Kemp. “It’s really just about bringing people here and together, and it’s very unique.”

What began as a half-day festival has since grown into a four-day event, with ticketed concerts taking place on Thursday and Friday in downtown Peterborough, and the free-admission part of the festival happening on three stages in Nicholls Oval Park during the weekend.

With policies on inclusion and a gender parity commitment, the music each year is “multi-generational” says Kemp, who adds that this year there were over 700 submissions from artists who applied from as far away as the U.K. and Europe.

“It’s really exciting to see that, and see the recognition of the festival grow nationally,” says Kemp, noting it also provides more exposure for the local artists who perform.

“We want artists to come in and to build up their reputations and for people to get to see them at other venues like Jethro’s, the Pig’s Ear, and Market Hall, where they’ll eventually play. (Being) part of the ecosystem is how we see ourselves as a festival.”

Another program that has the Peterborough Folk Festival punching above its weight is the Emerging Artist Award. Considering the first award in 2001 went to the now seven-time Juno award winner Serena Ryder, the recognition can be a step on the road to stardom for a local musician or band.

“We’re so blessed in Peterborough to have so many great artists,” says Kemp. “The biggest thing is to interweave them with these touring artists at the festival.”

With support from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, in recent years the festival has been able to fund the purchase of essential equipment for the event, like canopy tents, folding tables, and cords. Prior to the purchases, volunteers drove to Orillia before and after the festival to borrow cable ramps from other event organizers.

“All that helps with sustainability of the festival by making it more professional for artists and audiences — and it makes it more sustainable for all volunteers too,” says Davis. “Behind the scenes, we’re just trying to get more and more set up and established to make this festival as sustainable as we can, so that we’re well set up to continue in the future.”

That focus on sustainability connects to environmental initiatives as well, as organizers are always in search of ways to make the festival more environmentally friendly. That includes having volunteer crews washing the reusable dishes for food vendors, hosting shuttle transportation from downtown Peterborough, and sending as little waste to the landfill as possible. For example, with over 15,000 attendees over two days, the festival sends only around six bags of waste to the landfill.

With so much going into the festival weekend, planning begins a full year in advance — often at the previous year’s festival.

“We’re always thinking about what would work better and what the audiences are reacting to,” says Kemp. “We’re always thinking about how we can improve it and always asking people too. It’s the Peterborough Folk Festival, so we want to ask and hear suggestions because it’s everyone’s festival.”

Alongside Davis and Kemp, there are 10 board directors who lead various committees of community members from eco-committees to production committees, and everything in between. The year-round volunteers team up with the 200 volunteers who show up for event weekend, lending their hands at the children’s village, washing dishes, parking bikes, and much more.

“It’s incredible, the team that comes together,” says Kemp. “It’s nice to see so many people want to get involved and see the festival grow. It’s just been really amazing to see that support.”

While Davis notes they’ve had a “successful recruitment” of volunteers, and the festival’s revenue from sponsors and funding remains strong, the dollars do not go as far as they once did.

“Some of these other costs that we have no choice but to pay if we’re going to have this festival — renting the stage, food, electrical permits — go up and are eating a greater and greater share of the overall revenue, which is leaving us squeezed in terms of the performer budget,” says Davis.

For his part, Kemp adds that headlining artist fees have “doubled or tripled” in the past few years — something that’s not obvious to audiences as they never have to pay anything to see the performers, but is important to the festival for attracting big-name headliners.

“It’s amazing what you can see at the festival and the artists that will perform, and it’s all free,” he says. “Our goal has always been to get the artist fee as high as possible and that’s something we’ve built through revenue.”

A larger artist budget would allow the festival to pay for the more in-demand headliners, drawing a larger crowd, and bringing in more listeners for the emerging local talent which, according to Kemp, is one of the most important aspects of Peterborough Folk Festival.

“It’s to support the (headliner) artist and give our local artists a chance to play in front of a big crowd,” adds Kemp. “We want them to get that awareness. We’ve heard many times where a local artist will perform at the festival and they’ll get other gigs from it, whether it’s private shows or other places they get to play. That’s our main goal — to support the artists.”

While other festivals might charge hundreds of dollars per ticket to make up 85 per cent of their operational fees, keeping admission free at the Peterborough Folk Festival is something Davis says continues to be a priority.

“We talk about it every couple of years, and have a big heart to heart, asking ourselves ‘Can we continue like this?’ And we still have, but it’s not easy,” Davis says.

He adds that keeping the festival admission-free keeps it accessible to everyone, including families with children and older adults.

“We really do see ourselves as a community event and a community service too,” Davis says. “We like to be that gathering place for people, and putting up fences and selling tickets and having bracelets would shut a lot of people out that we want to be able to experience the festival.”

“We’ve had lots of people saying this is one of the reasons they live in Peterborough, and this is one of the things that make this town a community — and we would lose that if we had to sell $200 tickets for the weekend.”

Davis credits a large part of that to the festival volunteers who donate their time to keep it accessible.

“I think it’s a real testament to how much the festival connects with people in the community, the fact that people will want to come out to volunteer,” he says. “It comes from the commitment and belief in what we do, and we see how much it means to the community.”

In addition to the support of volunteers and government grants it receives, the Peterborough Folk Festival relies on sponsors and community donations to keep the festival free and inclusive for everyone.

For more information on sponsoring the 2025 festival, visit www.peterboroughfolkfest.com/sponsor. To donate to the festival, visit www.peterboroughfolkfest.com/donate.

If you missed some of the sold-out and highly acclaimed performances at the Brand New Stages Festival held by New Stages Theatre in February this year, you are in luck: select shows will be brought to life again throughout the summer, and this time, they will be staged for free and in the open air.

The evenings of performance, songs, stories, and comedy will be held at the Jalynn Bennett Amphitheatre, located in downtown Peterborough at Trent University’s Catharine Parr Traill College. The free shows will kick off and close out the William and Nona Heaslip Foundation Summer Festival, which runs from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday evenings from June 5 to August 28.

“We are excited to share some of our most popular performance events from our 2024-25 season as part of this exciting summer festival,” said New Stages Theatre artistic director Mark Wallace in a media release. “Many of these shows were first presented at our Brand New Stages Festival in February and we’re sure that audiences will love to see them here at the amphitheatre.”

Built in 2023, the three-season performance space, which is located at the downtown college’s courtyard, is named for Jalynn Bennett, a former chair of the Trent University board of governors and a trailblazer in business. Bennett’s estate granted $1.13 million to the university in 2018 which was put towards the construction alongside federal and municipal funding the university received to meet the need for a centrally located, outdoor stage in the community.

The William and Nona Heaslip Foundation Summer Festival will bring music, theatre, comedy to the stage performed by local and visiting artists almost every week beginning the first Thursday in June. The festival offers a more diverse line-up and more performances in comparison to the six-concert “William and Nona Heaslip: Music on the Hill” series presented by the college throughout the summer of 2024.

To open the festival on June 5, New Stages Theatre is presenting Fireside Munsch, directed by Dahlia Katz and adapted and performed by M. John Kennedy (New Stages Theatre, 4th Line Theatre).

VIDEO: “Fireside Munsch” trailer

Enjoyable to kids and adults of all ages, the show is a highly acclaimed theatrical retelling of beloved Robert Munsch children’s stories like “The Paper Bag Princess” and “Mortimer.” Performed to a sold-out audience at Market Hall Performing Arts Centre this past February, M. John Kenney has performed the one-person show has been performed all over the province and has been nominated for eight of Toronto’s Dora Mavor Moore Awards.

On Thursday, June 12, Peterborough’s own Megan Murphy will host a Story Slam at the amphitheatre. Following the success of the debut slam at the Brand New Stages Festival earlier this year, New Stages Theatre is reviving the fun by giving audiences a chance to share a true, personal story under the theme of “Great Escapes.”

Whatever story the theme reminds you of, Murphy wants to hear it. Each storyteller will have five minutes on stage to share their story, which must be told without the use of notes or props, must be true, and must be from one’s own experience. Storytellers need not sign up ahead of time.

New Stages Theatre will then return to the amphitheatre on Thursday, August 21 to reunite the two stars from the New Stages production of A Christmas Carol Comedy, staged at the Market Hall last December, only this time they’ll be unscripted.

World-class improvisers and comedians Linda Kash and Kerry Griffin — with surprise special guests — will have the audience laughing and surprised by what can be done without rehearsals or a script. You never know what trouble Kash and Griffin will get into, though it will undoubtedly be hilarious.

On Thursday, August 28, the final night of the festival, New Stages Theatre will present a staged reading of Magic Lies: An Evening with W.O. Mitchell. Written by Peterborough residents and former Trent University faculty Orm and Barbara Mitchell, the play is a remembrance of the life and work of the legendary Canadian writer who was Orm’s father.

The performance is sure to be a memorable one, as O.W. frequently gave readings and held writing workshops at Trent University, from which he received an honorary degree. Performed by Martin Julien with musical accompaniment from Peterborough pianist Rob Phillips, Magic Lies was staged during the Brand New Stages Festival this past February.

The rest of the shows in the William and Nona Heaslip Foundation Summer Festival are “Portraits of Peterborough 1825 to 2025” with folk music by Glen Caradus (June 19), the Peterborough Concert Band performing marches, big band music, and more (June 26), “An Evening of Jazz” with violinist Victoria Yeh and special guests (July 3), “Exploring Agamemnon” performed by The Electric City Players (July 10), Peterborough-born and Kitchener-based indie folk-rockers I, The Mountain (July 24), jazz quintet Carpe Noctem (July 31), and clarinet quintet Clarintella and the Peterborough Dixieland Septet (August 7).

In the event of rain, performances may be moved indoors to Bagnani Hall if needed.

With both emerging performers and those with ancestral connections bringing history to life on stage, Trent Valley Archives Theatre’s upcoming production of Crossing Over is a multi-generational celebration of Peterborough’s past, present, and future.

To be staged from May 29 to 31 at Market Hall Performing Arts Centre in downtown Peterborough, Crossing Over commemorates the 200th anniversary of the emigration of more than 2,000 Irish settlers to Peterborough and the Kawarthas region under a plan devised by Upper Canada politician Peter Robinson.

Written by Ed Schroeter and Gerry McBride, the play picks up following the end of Tide of Hope — the company’s sold-out inaugural production staged last May — that focused on David Nagle, an Irish land agent who was forced to flee to Upper Canada when Irish rebels branded him a traitor. Some of the actors in Tide of Hope are also performing in Crossing Over, including Lucas Pronk, who will reprise the role of Peter Robinson.

“Peter Robinson is a well-known figure of our area that hasn’t been written the way that Ed and Gerry have, and the way Lucas Pronk continues to play him,” says director Drew Mills. “After 200 years, it’s a great opportunity to learn about our history again.”

Crossing Over is set on the John Barry, the emigrant transport ship that Nagle boarded when he fled Ireland. The John Barry was the last of the nine Peter Robinson ships to leave Ireland at the end of May 1825 — exactly 200 years before the play is being staged.

While Mills took on the role of Nagle in the first play, he has since put on the director’s hat, with Nagle now being played by the “talented” Eddy Sweeney, who starred in the Peterborough Theare Guild’s production of Stephen Massicotte’s World War I play Mary’s Wedding last October.

“Transitioning from actor as David Nagle to watching Eddie Sweeney play David has been quite a treat,” says Mills. “It isn’t very often that a character persists between shows.”

Of the nine Robinson ships, the John Barry had the longest and most tumultuous journey, with its 253 passengers living in cramped quarters and unhygienic conditions — many facing malnutrition — while the ship frequently encountered bad weather and stormy seas.

Though Crossing Over is a fictionalized story of the ship’s six-week journey, its portrayal of near shipwrecks, the misadventures of troubled teens, passenger rebellions, and mistrust and fear was drawn from a detailed journal kept by ship surgeon William Burnie as well as an article by Don Willcock, a staff member of the Peterborough Museum & Archives and president of the Peterborough Historical Society, who is the script’s history consultant.

Willcock’s article was about John Barry passenger and seanchaí John Kelleher, who Schroeter and McBride decided to make the narrator of Crossing Over. And who better to play a seanchaí than a real-life seanchaí? Perhaps that’s what Mills was thinking when he cast Hugh Foley in the role of the traditional Irish storyteller and oral historian.

Uniquely qualified for the role, Foley is the seanchaí for Foley’s Irish Pub, a show combining storytelling and live music that has run every year around St. Patrick’s Day for the past decade at Showplace Performance Centre in downtown Peterborough. Always harbouring an interest in Irish history, Foley has also travelled to Ireland several times and has shared stories as the author of Short Tales of Ireland and Tales From a Seanchaí.

“The script is very interesting and I’m enjoying the character Kelleher,” Foley says, noting he hasn’t previously had a role in a play though his interest in the 200th anniversary of the emigration inspired him to get involved.

“Anybody of Irish background, this is right up their alley. This is where they came from and this is how they got here, so it will certainly interest anyone of Irish background, but any history buff would be interested.”

As well as being a seanchaí, Foley is a descendant of several Irish settlers who were on three of the Peter Robinson ships, making him “the wind that fills the sail of authenticity onboard,” according to Mills.

“The Foleys are a big family,” says Foley, noting he conducted his ancestry research with help from Trent Valley Archives and other local sources. “There’s not a lot mentioned about them except that they did end up in Ennismore. They were farmers there for a while, and then the family seemed to just disappear.”

“It was like karma that I was destined to play this character,” he adds.

Foley is not the only one bringing Irish settler authenticity to the play. Elaine Day, who plays Mrs. Owens and is the chorus vocal director and the production’s costume designer, and Cathy Brand, who plays Mrs. Hagerty, are also descendants of Peter Robinson immigrants.

“There were also quite a few people who came up to us after (Tide of Hope) and mentioned how they were direct descendants of the various people we played,” says Mills. “I’m expecting the same (after Crossing Over), for people to say their heritage started on the John Barry.”

While Crossing Over is undoubtedly about commemorating the past, Trent Valley Archives Theatre is just as passionate about fostering the region’s artistic future by inviting young and first-time performers to the stage.

“I’ve always believed that community theatre should prioritize the experience that theatre brings rather than the output of your event,” says Mills. “Youth is the best part. They are the ones that matter most.”

One young performer bringing lots of enthusiasm to Crossing Over is Kalla Tahon, a 16-year-old eleventh grader from St. Peter Catholic Secondary School.

After Mills said he planned to cast her in the role of John Ryan — a young passenger on the John Barry who, along with his brother Tim (played by Kaza Hesselink), was a troublemaker on the ship — Schroeter decided to “break history” and modify his script to transform John Ryan into Elinor Ryan.

“I was just in shock because I had never done a lead role,” says Tahon. “It was really exciting and the fact they were willing to change it for me was extraordinary. I was speechless and so excited.”

With several musical roles under her belt, including seven in the past three years for St. James Players and the Theatre Arts Training Academy, Tahon was drawn to how “different” the historical play is as well as to her character.

“She’s really kind of spunky,” Tahon says. “She’s really sassy and she’s not also afraid to speak out, which I think is really fun.”

Although Crossing Over is a fictionalized account of the John Barry’s journey, Tahon says she has been able to learn more about the history of the region, expanding on knowledge she gained from field trips as a Girl Guide.

“I’ve been aware of it, but I never realized the whole complexity in the entire history before this play,” she says. “It’s been really exciting to actually learn about the history of Peterborough through another lens.”

It’s also taught her something else: how to do the Irish accent, which she notes is “challenging but it’s been really fun” as she’s been watching the Ireland-based television show Derry Girls. Though she doesn’t intend to pursue a career in performance arts, Tahon sees herself as always being involved in community theatre for years to come.

“I love like the freedom that you get from being on stage and getting to play different characters,” she explains. “I just think is really fun, and like the way you get to express yourself. I love dancing and I love singing, so it’s just a really great way for me to kind of grow myself creatively. I also love the family that you find within theater. Everyone’s super nice and genuine and I really love that.”

Other members of the main cast are Abby Koshka (Mary Nagle), Nathan Govier (Patrick Ryan), Robyn Hawthorne (Elizabeth Ryan), Sianna Gaulton (Johanna), and Ashley Parker (Surgeon William Burnie). Produced by Mary and Greg Conchelos, Crossing Over is stage managed by Barb Taylor-Mills, who also happens to be the director’s mother.

Musical director and musician Michael Ketemer will offer lively traditional Irish music backed by the chorus consisting of Elaine Day (Ms. Owens), Lucas Pronk (Peter Robinson/Mr. Hagerty), Justin O’Brien (Captain Peter Roche), Zoe Shufelt (Frances Young), Adrianna Malloy (Eliza Young), Lily Faulkner (Honora Young), and Cathy Brand (Catherine Hagerty).

“The actors have put a lot of effort into their performances and characters,” says Mills. “Having an audience to react to them will bring a great deal of life to their performance. If they’re lucky, the audience might get a little involved.”

Suitable for ages 14 and up, Crossing Over will be performed at 7:30 p.m. from Thursday, May 29 to Saturday, May 31, with an additional 2 p.m. matinee performance on May 31.

Tickets are $40 for assigned cabaret table seating or $30 for regular assigned seating and can be purchased by phoning the Market Hall at 705-749-1146, emailing boxoffice@markethall.com, or visiting markethall.org.

Proceeds from ticket sales will support the Trent Valley Archives, a non-profit charitable organization that houses an extensive and growing collection of local historical resources and makes them available to the public. The organization also encourages local and family history research, operates a facility, and raises awareness of local history through historical tours, events, publications, and presentations.

kawarthaNOW is proud to be a platinum media sponsor for Crossing Over.