Opening on Friday, November 9th and running until November 17th, St. James Players presents its much-anticipated production of Shrek: The Musical, directed by Nate Axcell and Drew Mills and based heavily on the 2001 Oscar-winning animated film (as well as the original picture book by William Steig).

A cast of local favourites bring Shrek, Donkey, Princess Fiona, and all the familiar characters from the popular film series alive on the Showplace Performance Centre stage in another family-friendly production in the classic St. James Players tradition.

Less than a year after the film Shrek won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, a stage musical version began development under the creative team of director Jason Moore, writer David Lindsay-Abaire, and songwriter Jeanine Tesori. Keeping the basic story but including all-new music, Shrek: The Musical took nearly five years to develop before it opened as a test run in Seattle in 2007.

After a successful month-long run, the show made its Broadway premiere at the Broadway Theater in December 2008 where it ran until January 2010. During its initial run, it was nominated for eight Tony Award nominations and won 12 Drama Desk Awards.

Shrek: The Musical tells the story of a miserable and reclusive ogre named Shrek (Rowan Lamouroux) who lives in seclusion far away from the society that fears him. However, that peaceful but lonely existence ends when a group of fairy tale characters are displaced from their homes in the Kingdom of Duloc by the tyrannical and vertically impaired Lord Farquuad (Taylor Beatty).

Determined to get his swamp back to the way he wants it, Shrek travels to Duloc to appeal to Farquuad to allow the fairy tale creatures to return to their homes. Along the way he comes upon an overly friendly donkey (Lindsay Barr), who decides to journey with him as his ever-talking travelling companion.

Upon arriving in Duloc, Shrek strikes a deal with Lord Farquuad to rid the swamp of the fairy tale invaders: so that Farquuad can marry her and become king, Shrek will have to save the beautiful Princess Fiona (Elizabeth Moody) from her imprisonment in a tower guarded by a dragon (Mallory McDonald) and her horde of skeletons. Taking on the quest, Shrek and Donkey go in search of the Princess and along the way discover friendship, acceptance, and love.

I am not overly familiar with the Shrek franchise and decided not to view the films prior to seeing the St. James Players production, so I could see it through the eyes of someone brand new to this fantasy world. As a stranger to the story, I found the narrative engaging, the characters charming, and the overall theme of the play to be uplifting. Shrek: The Musical is an imaginative fantasy filled with colourful characters and fun performances.

That said, Shrek: The Musical is also an unorthodox choice for St. James Players and a somewhat risky show to take on. However, the company steps up to the challenge and creates a show for the entire family.

One of the most interesting things about watching Shrek: The Musical is that all of the main roles are performed by actors who are not usually cast as leads in musicals. Made up of many of my favourite performers, all of the leads would traditionally be identified as “character actors.” The result is a refreshing audience experience as familiar faces move into the spotlight.

Under heavy make-up and with a prosthetic nose, Rowan Lamoureaux has the right size and girth to bring Shrek to life in all his green glory. There is no denying that Rowan plays Shrek very well, and both young and old fans of the character will delight at seeing him come to life so realistically on stage.

But Rowan is more of an emotional actor than a comedic one, and his portrayal of Shrek becomes far more interesting when he is able to work with deeper material, primarily within the second half of the show. Rowan’s shining moment is during the second act musical number “When Words Fail”, which is the goosebumps moment of the show. Rowan does an admirable job in bringing Shrek to life, but even a greater job at bringing heart and depth to the character.

With previous roles as diverse as Shelly in Evil Dead, Janis Joplin, and Captain Hook within her repertoire, musician-turned-actor Lindsay Barr brings her brand of high-energy performance to Shrek’s comic foil Donkey. Filled with optimism and non-stop banter, Lindsay brings fun into every scene she’s in. But where she really steals the show is during her musical numbers — but then that’s what Lindsay does best.

Songs such as “Don’t Let Me Go” and my personal favourite “Make Your Move” (where Donkey is accompanied by the Three Blind Mice) are standout musical moments showcasing Lindsay’s dynamic showmanship. Donkey is a perfect role to showcase Lindsay’s emergence as a true triple threat on the stage: she acts, she dances, and she can really sing.

Shrek: The Musical is the first leading role for Elizabeth Moody, despite her long presence on the Peterborough stage. Elizabeth is perfectly cast as the sometimes sweet and sometimes ferocious Princess Fiona. Once again, Fiona is as odd as her co-characters, with Liz making a delightful albeit unusual ingénue. Her chemistry with Rowan is delightful, and Shrek and Fiona make an adorable pair.

Although Shrek and Donkey are supposed to be the comedic pairing, I found many of Rowan and Liz’s interactions to be more comical and natural. Liz’s standout musical performance is a delightful song and dance number, “Morning Person”, at the beginning of the second act — performed with a delightful band of tap-dancing rats.

I’d also like to make mention of Liz’s performance of “I Know It’s Today” where she teams up with two of my favourite young stage performers: Macayla Vaughn, who played Jane Banks in last year’s production of Mary Poppins, and Aimee Gordon, who is better known to Peterborough audiences as Boo in Planet 12 Productions’ successful Boy Wonders. It’s a charming moment in the show when three Fionas come together in song.

The comedic moment of the night goes to Taylor Beatty in his outlandish role as pint-sized dictator Lord Farquuad. Traditionally appearing in less family-friendly musicals such as The Rocky Horror Show and Sweeney Todd, Taylor returns after a long absence from the Peterborough stage as this unusual and devious character. What makes it such a fun role is the hilarious and clever costume that allows Taylor to believably become a four-foot-high tyrant with a giant ego but small legs. Taylor steals each scene he is in.

I want to give a shout-out to Mallory MacDonald in the role of the Dragon. I’ve watched Mallory in the background of many musicals, but I had no idea how much of a big voice she has. She blew my mind with her performance of “Donkey Pot Pie”. Alongside a horde of dancing skeletons, Mallory stays toe-to-toe with Lindsay Barr in an outrageous duet. It’s a golden moment, and Mallory is a standout who left me stunned. She should be cast in much larger roles — there is a superstar behind that voice.

But it takes a huge cast of colourful characters to make up the world of Shrek, and each member of the ensemble plays multiple characters who are unique from one another. The cast is filled with so many of my favourite performers from the local theatre community, and it’s wonderful to see so many people I truly enjoy as both performers and people making up this cast.

Standouts include the abrasive Pinocchio played by Kaitlin MacMillain, and the high-pitched Gingy performed by Grace de Mara (who also doubles as Little Red Riding Hood).

Meanwhile, the costumes for the fairy tale creatures developed by Rebecca Smith, along with the ambitious make-up designs by Christie Read and Liz Moody, make all of the characters in the show immediately identifiable and delightful to watch. It’s fair to say that the costumes and make up may be the true stars of the show.

Although Shrek: The Musical is a family production, I couldn’t help but find some interesting political and social subtext within the show that may go over the heads of younger audience members.

The lyrics to Lord Farquaad’s musical number “What’s Up, Duloc” read like an Aryan manifesto right out of the Third Reich, as the fairy tale characters are banished from their homes and into a swamp just as the European Jews were forced into ghettos. On the other hand, the fairy tale characters’ rousing second act number “Freak Flag” could pass for an LGBTQ+ anthem and, not surprisingly, the rainbow flag does make a subtle appearance on the stage.

Finally, there’s a message of unity and acceptance within the show. The finale is a call to celebrate one’s uniqueness and differences and to accept everyone for who and what they are. It’s an uplifting message in today’s bleak social dystopia filled with fear mongering and xenophobia. We need strong uplifting shows like Shrek: The Musical right about now.

Shrek: The Musical may have been a risky production for St. James Players to take on, but the company has created a charming show filled with lots of imagination, fantasy, and fun. People familiar with the film will enjoy seeing the characters on the small stage, and those not familiar with it will become engaged in a new type of fairy tale.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’m going to sit down and finally watch the movie and discover this story all over again.

Shrek: The Musical opens on November 9th and runs until November 17th at the Showplace Performance Centre ((290 George St. N., Peterborough). Tickets are $29 ($26 for students or seniors and $23 for children under 13) and available in person at the Showplace Box Office, by phone at 705-742-7469, or online at www.showplace.org.

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, November 8 to Wednesday, November 14.

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.

From Thursday, November 8th to Sunday, November 11th, performance company Fleshy Thud (supported by Public Energy) observes the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I with Ryan Kerr’s newest production Unexploded Ordnance at The Theatre On King (TTOK) in downtown Peterborough.

Directed by Kate Story and featuring accompaniment by musicians Matt Greco and Curtis Driedger and on-stage tech by Eryn Lidster, Unexploded Ordnance is a powerful and personal exploration of Ryan’s personal connection with World War I and the Dadaist art movement that emerged from it.

“Am I looking at the war as a historian or as an artist?” Ryan asks early in the show.

This becomes the question upon which much of the show hinges as Ryan merges history and storytelling in a captivating hour-long performance.

In Unexploded Ordnance, his third play about World War I, Ryan takes audiences from Sarajevo in 1914 to the battle arena of Ypres to the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich to the streets of Scarborough in 1986, creating an emotionally charged tapestry of stories and history revealing more about himself than the TTOK audience has ever seen before.

The framework of Unexploded Ordinance is indeed a series of history lessons, but told through multiple artistic platforms including movement, music, projection, soundscapes, and Ryan’s unique way of making history come to life through interesting factoids and expert storytelling.

Ryan is able to take facts and figures that may be abstract to people who have never experienced a world at war, and relay them in a way that helps us understand the magnitude of what it meant to society.

For instance, early in the show Ryan points out that 17 million people were killed as a result of the war. It is difficult to understand what the number 17 million actually looks like, but Ryan breaks it down using visual metaphors that are both relatable and disturbing.

From the origins of the war to the reality of the trenches, Ryan has a unique ability to bring a sense of understanding to the audience about just a small iota of the horror of war. In this way, he brings history to life.

Unexploded Ordnance also celebrates Dadaism, the avant-garde art movement that emerged out of Switzerland as a reaction to the war. He tells about the Cabaret Voltaire, as well as Hugo Ball and Emmy Hemmings and the other displaced refugee artists who came together in Zurich.

The linear connection between the Dadaists and the work that Ryan has become noted for in the local theatre community become quite obvious, and the performance includes a partial recreation of sound poet Hugo Ball’s haunting final public performance.

But while history creates the framework for Unexploded Ordinance, it’s the personal stories that become the heart of the show. Ryan reveals memories from his childhood and youth, some light and others painful, ranging from the ages of four to 17.

It hadn’t occurred to me until discussing this show with Ryan that, while I’ve covered his work for five years and have had numerous conversations and interviews with him, he remains somewhat of an enigma. Visitors to TTOK all know Ryan through his personal introductions to each performance, his role as a cultural leader within our community, and his willingness to take risks when creating art.

But in Unexploded Ordnance Ryan finally gets personal, by pulling back the curtains of his past and explaining the through lines of how his experiences as a teenager drew him to Dadaism and World War I — which in turn influenced the artistic odyssey that helped inspire his work at TTOK and his important artistic contribution to our community’s cultural landscape.

Within his exploration of his relationship with art and history, Ryan talks about his immersion in the Scarborough punk subculture in the late 1980s, how a bleak moment in his past changed his life, and how his sense of alienation and anger towards the absurdity of authority strengthened his relationship with art and World War I.

It’s the emotional payoff of the piece, with Ryan baring his true emotions in a story that is powerful and straightforward and told without ego or agenda. It’s unusual to see Ryan so vulnerable and affected, but it is an emotional moment that audiences will not forget. It’s powerful and brave storytelling.

Ryan adds another personal plot point into Unexploded Ordinance by outlining his research on his great-grandfather Charles Ashbee, who was a medic in The Great War. Charles’ stories were lost in time because his family’s reaction was that “Grandpa’s stories are too depressing.”

Ryan reveals how, while exploring the battlefields of Europe, a fluke incident started him down the path of rediscovering his great-grandfather’s history, transforming Charles Ashbee from a faint memory to a living person again. Again, this plot thread is both fascinating and emotional and makes history become tangible to the audience.

Unexploded Ordinance is a highly personal exploration of history, art, and one man’s connection with the past. Ryan draws a coherent line from events that occurred a hundred years ago to his life today. It is an engaging, emotional, and powerful production that truly brings history to life. But most of all, it’s just good theatre.

A perfect way to observe the importance of this year’s centennial of the armistice that ended World War I, Unexploded Ordinance is one of the finest shows I have seen at TTOK in 2018. I was captivated and moved by this incredible production. Everyone involved in the creation of this work has something to be truly proud of. With four public performances leading up to Remembrance Day, Unexploded Ordinance should be on your list of things to do this weekend.

Unexploded Ordinance will be performed at The Theatre on King (171 King St., Peterborough) from Thursday, November 8th to Saturday, November 10th with shows starting at 8 p.m., and on Sunday, November 11th at 2 pm. Tickets are $15 or pay what you can. Seating is limited, so reserve your tickets in advance by emailing contact@ttok.ca or by text/phone at 705-930-6194.

After a 20-year career and with 18 albums under his belt, it was only a matter of time before Juno-nominated musician Craig Cardiff released a best-of collection.

This is Craig Cardiff: Collected Works is the latest record from the prolific contemporary folk singer-songwriter, who returns to Market Hall Performing Arts Centre (140 Charlotte St., Peterborough, 705-749-1146) on Sunday, November 11th.

Available later this month, the new album features a selection of songs from past records, along with two new songs, and will be available digitally, on CD, and on limited edition vinyl.

The 42-year-old Cardiff can be described as the people’s singer-songwriter, having built a devoted grassroots following over his career by performing at almost every venue imaginable, from living rooms to camps to prisons to churches to halls. He essentially performs wherever his fans want to see him.

“If there’s 50 people, or whatever, who are open to organizing something, you should go play there,” he says in an 2013 interview with Jason Schneider of Exclaim. “It’s about where the people are.”

Because of his preference for performing off the beaten track, usually in small and intimate venues, Cardiff has been called an “advocate of alternate venue touring”.

VIDEO: “To Be Safe, Loved & Home” – Craig Cardiff

“Does it make sense financially?” he wonders in a 2013 interview with Sarah Ladik of The Hub. “Not always. But it’s about the connections you form with different people, the friends of friends who help you out.”

Cardiff was born in Waterloo and began performing there as a teenager in high school bands and at local coffeehouses. He continued to perform while studying at the University of Waterloo, where he also worked as a booking agent at Federation Hall, the then student-run nighclub and hall. After graduating, he moved to the Ottawa area where he eventually bought an old farmhouse in Arnprior, which now also serves as his home recording studio.

In 1997, he released his debut studio album Judy Garland (You’re Never Home), followed by Great American White Trash Novel (1997), Happy (2001), Soda (2003), Fistful of Flowers (2005), Auberge Blacksheep (2006), Goodnight (Go Home) (2007), Kissing Songs (Mistletoe) (2009), Mothers and Daughters (2010), Floods & Fires (2011), Love Is Louder (Than All This Noise) Part 1 & 2 (2013), Novemberish (Songs From The Rain) (2017), and Upstream Fishing All The Words, He Is: Birthday Cards For Bob Dylan (2018).

VIDEO: “Desolation Row” – Bob Dylan, performed by Craig Cardiff

He’s also released five live albums: Live at the Boehmer Box Company (2000), Ginger’s on Barrington Street w/ Rose Cousins (2003), Bombshelter Livingroom w/ Les Cooper (2005), Easter Eggs (2007), and Songs for Lucy (2010).

It was 2011’s Floods & Fires that garnered Cardiff a Juno nomination in 2012 for Roots and Traditional Album of the Year: Solo, although he lost the award to folk icon Bruce Cockburn. The album also earned him a nomination for Contemporary Singer of the Year at the 2012 Canadian Folk Music Awards.

Cardiff describes his music as “folk with a dash of sing-along and storytelling”. Blending the musical genres of folk, country, rock, and traditional, his lyrics always tell a story. He’s known his wide vocal range, with his voice often compared to that of early ’70s English singer-songwriter Nick Drake.

VIDEO: “Smallest Wingless” – Craig Cardiff

He often integrates live looping, beatboxing, and other techniques into his live performances, and he’s also known for creating cohesive and emotional performances through his humour and storytelling, and for engaging the audience during the show.

Since 2011, Cardiff has been passing around at his shows a notebook that he calls “The Book of Truths”, where he asks audience members to anonymously contribute a story, a confession, or a secret. The stories range from romance to depression and even a murder confession.

Some of Cardiff’s songs have been inspired by the stories in The Book of Truths, and the themes in his 2013 release Love Is Louder (Than All This Noise) Part 1 & 2 are largely based on the stories, which he says shows how much people have in common.

VIDEO: “Safe Here” – Craig Cardiff

“I feel like everybody’s a little bit broken,” he explains in a 2012 interview with Lindsay Chung of Roots Music Canada. “Everybody has the same capacity and range of terribleness and beautifulness and light.”

No stranger to Peterborough, Cardiff performed last November at the Market Hall in a double bill with Séan McCann, so this is an opportunity to see him all on his own.

The concert begins at 7 p.m. on Sunday, November 11th. Tickets are $20 in advance ($15 for students) or $25 at the door ($20 students) and are available at the Market Hall Box Office or online at markethall.org.

VIDEO: “When People Go” – Craig Cardiff