Showplace Performance Centre in downtown Peterborough has a packed line up over the next few months and, as usual, has something for everyone — from musical theatre to comedy to children’s shows to a wide range of concerts featuring world music, classic and modern rock, soul, roots, country, and more.

We’re featuring details of some of the upcoming shows at Showplace, including several “Showplace presents” performances, where proceeds from ticket sales go to support the operation of the non-profit charitable organization. These shows include guitar virtuoso Pavlo performing on March 1st, two Classic Albums Live concerts on March 2nd and April 7th, Menopause the Musical on March 8th and 9th, and the Jim Cuddy Band on March 19th.

We’ll also featuring Motown Soul on March 26th and two show by local performers: Foley’s Irish Pub on March 11 and Danny Bronson on April 27th. And we’ve also included a list of all the other shows scheduled so far at Showplace from February to April.

You can purchase advance tickets for any of the upcoming shows in person at the box office (290 George St. N.) or by phone at 705-742-7469 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday and from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, or anytime online at showplace.org.

Pavlo

Thursday, March 1st at 8 p.m. ($45)

Juno-nominated guitarist virtuoso Pavlo Simtikidis, who goes by the stage name of Pavlo, has released 10 albums and sold more than 500,000 records over his 20-year career.

Born in Toronto to Greek immigrants, Pavlo has made a name for himself by offering a musical fusion of Greek, Spanish Latin, and pop music he calls “Mediterranean music.”

When Pavlo was 10 years old, he spent hours hidden away practicing his guitar. When his parents realized he loved playing, they encouraged him to follow his musical dream. “Have the courage to do what you love, and the drive to do it well,” his father told him.

VIDEO: “Mediterranean Jig & Midnight Dance” – Pavlo

Following years of guitar lessons from classical to flamenco, Pavlo began playing in rock groups and wedding bands. He wrote his self-titled debut album in 1998 but, after record company executives passed on a record deal (they called it “too ethnic”), he created his own record label and marketed himself. By playing endlessly at cafes and festivals, he found his audience.

Since then, Pavlo’s instrumental music has since taken him all around the world, where he’s performed for royalty including Prince Charles and has worked and toured with artists such as José Feliciano, Jon Secada, Olivia Newton-John, and The Tenors.

In 2015, he collaborated with Remigio Pereira of The Tenors for Guitarradas, and in 2009 with fellow guitar masters Rik Emmett and Oscar Lopez for Trifecta, which was nominated for Instrumental Album of the Year at the 2010 Junos. His albums Pavlo and Fantasia are certified gold in Canada, with the latter nominated for a Juno award in 2001.

Pavlo’s March 1st performance at Showplace follows his February tour of the U.S., and is the first show of a cross-Canada tour during March and April.

Classic Albums Live: Creedence Clearwater Revival – Chronicle, Vol. 1

Friday, March 2nd at 8 p.m. ($38)

Founded by Craig Martin in Toronto in 2003, Classic Albums Live is a concert series in which musicians perform a classic rock album in its entirety, cut for cut and note for note. For each album, the musicians go to great lengths to faithfully recreate every sound on the original album.

It’s one of the most popular series at Showplace, and Classic Albums Live returns on March 2nd to deliver Chronicle, Vol. 1, the 1976 greatest hits album by Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR).

VIDEO: “Long As I Can See The Light” – Classical Albums Live – CCR Chronicle Vol 1

The best swamp/blues rock band to come out of the U.S., CCR produced hit after hit, fronted by songwriter and lead guitarist and vocalist John Fogerty with his brother Tom on rhythm guitar along with bassist Stu Cook and drummer Doug Clifford. After four years of chart-topping success, the band disbanded acrimoniously in late 1972.

At this Classic Albums Live concert, you will hear all 20 tracks from Chronicle, Vol. 1: “Susie Q”, “I Put a Spell on You”, “Proud Mary”, “Bad Moon Rising”, “Lodi”, “Green River”, “Commotion”, “Down on the Corner”, “Fortunate Son”, “Travelin’ Band”, “Who’ll Stop the Rain”, “Up Around the Bend”, “Run Through the Jungle”, “Lookin’ Out My Back Door”, “Long as I Can See the Light”, “I Heard It Through the Grapevine”, “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?”, “Hey Tonight”, “Sweet Hitch-Hiker”, and “Someday Never Comes”.

Menopause the Musical

Thursday, March 8th and Friday, March 9th at 8 p.m. ($55.85)

The world-wide smash hit Menopause the Musical is coming to Showplace for two performances only!

Written by Jeanie Linders, the musical parody debuted in the U.S. in 2001 and went on to an off-Broadway production in 2002 that saw more than 1,500 performances. Since then, the musical has been produced in 11 other countries around the world, and is the longest-running scripted musical in Las Vegas history.

VIDEO: Menopause The Musical

The musical follows four women shopping for lingerie at a Bloomingdale’s sale who seem to have nothing in common — until they realize they are all going thhrough “the change”. The characters sing 25 songs related to menopause — chocolate cravings, hot flashes, loss of memory, nocturnal sweats, wrinkles, and sexual predicaments — set to the tunes of classic hits of the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s.

The all-star Canadian cast — Janet Martin (Iowa Housewife), Nicole Robert (Earth Mother), Jayne Lewis (Soap Star), and Michelle White (Professional Woman) — has done an impressive 513 consecutive performances to date.

Did you know 6,000 women enter menopause each day and there are 1.7 billion menopausal women worldwide? That’s why millions of women have laughed at loud at this hilarious parody of “the change” for the past 17 years. But it’s not only a show for women — men who have been perplexed by what happens to their mothers, wives, sisters or partners as they enter middle age will be able to relate and laugh right alongside the women in the audience.

Foley’s Irish Pub

Sunday, March 11th at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. in the Nexicom Studio ($20 adults, $10 students)

For the third year in a row, the Nexicom Studio at Showplace will be transformed into a typical pub in Ireland when Foley’s Irish Pub returns for two performances on March 11th.

Storyteller Hugh Foley will weave facts and humour together in his light-hearted Irish tales. Live Irish music will be provided by 4 Front (Terry Finn, Theresa Foley, Sheila Prophet, and Norma Curtis) along with Ron Kervin, Fiddling Jay, Amelia Foley, and special guest singer and guitar player Fr. Damian Smullen.

Irish Stew and soda bread will be available to purchase at intermission, and the bar will be stocked with all your favorite Irish drinks.

Come celebrate St. Patrick’s Day and everything Irish at Foley’s Irish Pub, with performances at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. (the afternoon show is nearly sold out).

The Jim Cuddy Band

Monday, March 19th at 8 p.m. ($58.50)

Jim Cuddy released his fourth solo album Constellation in January and is touring across Canada with his band, including stop in Peterborough on March 19th, to support the new record.

The 62-year-old Cuddy, best known as the co-frontman of Blue Rodeo, continues to produce well-crafted country-pop songs delivered with his unique and instantly recognizable vocals. The songs on Constellation are primarily about loss and leaving, and were heavily influenced by the 2017 passing of Cuddy’s close friend Rob Gray following a battle with cancer (Cuddy wrote the title track about Gray).

VIDEO: “You Be The Leaver” – Jim Cuddy

Cuddy’s previous solo albums include All in Time (1998), The Light That Guides You Home (2006), and Skyscraper Soul (2011). He continues to perform with Greg Keelor in Blue Rodeo, which has released 15 studio albums since 1984, with the latest being 2016’s 1000 Arms.

Performing with Cuddy in his band are fellow Blue Rodeo members Bazil Donovan on bass and Colin Cripps on guitar, along with violinist Anne Lindsay, keyboardist Steve O’Connor, and drummer Joel Anderson.

Every ticket purchase for the March 19th concert at Showplace includes a copy of Constellation.

Motown Soul

Monday, March 26th at 7 p.m. ($39-$49)

Paquette Productions is bringing the classic Motown sound to Peterborough with “Motown Soul”, a tribute show at Showplace on March 26th.

Motown is the style of soul-pop music named after Motown Records, the music label founded in Detroit, Michigan by Berry Gordy Jr. in 1959. The label was the driving force behind some of the biggest names in music, including Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross and The Supremes, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, and The Jackson 5. No other record company in history has exerted such an enormous influence on both the style and substance of popular music and culture.

“Motown Soul” features the exquisite vocal harmonies of The Tonettes (Cathy Borges, Marlene O’Neill, and Amoy Levy) performing alongside special guest vocalist Grady Harrell from Las Vegas. The singers will be backed by The Rockin’ Royals band.

You’ll hear classic Motown songs including “Ooh Baby Baby” (Smokey Robinson), “Lonely Teardrops” (Jackie Wilson), “I’ll Be There” (Jackson 5), “My Girl” (The Temptations), “Heatwave” (Martha and the Vandellas), “Be My Baby” (Ronettes), “Natural Woman” (Aretha Franklin), and “You Can’t Hurry Love” (Supremes).

VIDEO: Motown Soul Promo

Classic Albums Live: Led Zeppelin – Houses of the Holy

Saturday, April 7th at 8 p.m. ($38)

Founded by Craig Martin in Toronto in 2003, Classic Albums Live is a concert series in which musicians perform a classic rock album in its entirety, cut for cut and note for note. For each album, the musicians go to great lengths to faithfully recreate every sound on the original album.

It’s one of the most popular series at Showplace, and Classic Albums Live returns on April 7th with Houses of the Holy, the 1973 album by English rock band Led Zeppelin.

VIDEO: Classic Albums Live: Led Zeppelin – Houses of the Holy

The band’s fifth studio album, Houses of the Holy was their first record comprising entirely original material. It also represents a turning point in musical direction for the band, featuring more complex production techniques, including layering of Jimmy Page’s guitar riffs, and an expansion of musical influences such as eggae and funk.

At this Classic Albums Live concert, you will hear all tracks from the album: “The Song Remains the Same”, “The Rain Song”, “Over the Hills and Far Away”, “The Crunge”, “Dancing Days”, “D’yer Mak’er”, “No Quarter”, and “The Ocean”.

Danny Bronson presents The Music of Glen Campbell

Saturday, April 27th at 8 p.m. ($30)

After his very successful concert at Showplace last year performing the songs of Gordon Lightfoot, Peterborough’s own Danny Bronson returns to present “The Music of Glen Campbell: Songs from the Goodtime Hour.”

Glen Campbell, who died last August at the age of 81, is best known for a series of hit songs in the 1960s and 1970s, and for hosting a music and comedy variety show called The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour on CBS television from 1969 to 1972. Over his 50 year career, Campbell relased more than 70 albums, accumulating over 45 million record sales worldwide, including 12 gold albums, four platinum albums, and one double-platinum album.

Bronson will be performing some of Glen Campbell’s best-known and loved songs, including “Rhinestone Cowboy”, “Wichita Lineman”, “Gentle on my Mind”, “Galveston”, “By the Time I Get to Phoenix”, and many more.

VIDEO: “Gentle on My Mind” – Glen Campbell

All upcoming performances at Showplace (February to April 2018)

• February 14-17 – St. Peter’s Secondary School presents Beauty and the Beast
• February 18 – Brett Kissel
• February 20 – Alan Doyle (SOLD OUT)
• February 22 – Ron James
• February 23 – The Musicals of Andrew Loud Webber
• February 24 – Frozen in Time: The Musical
• March 1 – Pavlo
• March 2 – Classic Albums Live: CCR – Chronicle
• March 6 – The Sheepdogs
• March 7 – Randy Bachman
• March 8 & 9 – Menopause the Musical
• March 10 – Singing Legends
• March 11 – Foley’s Irish Pub
• March 12 – Letterkenny (SOLD OUT)
• March 19 – The Jim Cuddy Band
• March 26 – Motown Soul
• March 27 – Four by Four
• March 31 – Mini Pop Kids
• April 4 – Classic Albums Live: Led Zeppelin Houses of the Holy
• April 12 – Music from the Movies: Beth Hunt, Bob Trennum and Lee Batchelor
• April 25 – Ron James
• April 26 – Shopkins Live!
• April 27 – Danny Bronson: The Music of Glen Campbell
• April 28 – Measha Brueggergosman
• April 29 – High Valley

Tickets for all shows are available in person at the box office (290 George St. N.) or by phone at 705-742-7469 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday and from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, or anytime online at 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, February 8 to Wednesday, February 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.

This Sunday (February 11), New Stages Theatre Company continues its popular The Page on Stage reading series with a presentation of Beverley Cooper’s play If Truth Be Told at Market Hall Performing Arts Centre (140 Charlotte St., Peterborough).

Under the direction of New Stages Artistic Director Randy Read, If Truth Be Told is a tale of literary censorship with a strong connection to Peterborough, as it is partially inspired by iconic Canadian author (and former Lakefield resident) Margaret Laurence’s battle against having her books banned from high schools in the late 1970s.

Although it takes a look at both sides of the censorship issue in a story set in the past, the play is still relevant today.

Making its debut at the Blyth Festival in 2016, If Truth Be Told originated from a conversation between Randy and playwright Beverley Cooper.

“A few years ago Beverley Cooper wrote Innocence Lost: A Tale of Steven Truscott,” Randy recalls. “I knew her fairly well and I said to her ‘I always thought a good play would be about what happened to Margaret Laurence and the debacle in Peterborough in the ’70s and ’80s when they took her work out of the schools.”

VIDEO: “Margaret Laurence’s books banned” – The National CBC – January 25, 1985

The incident Randy speaks of is a now infamous part of our local literary history. Laurence had moved to Lakefield where she wrote her final novel The Diviners. The book would be awarded the Governor General Award for English Language Fiction in 1974, and soon became part of the high school English curriculum.

But before the end of the decade, a local religious organization calling themselves Renaissance Canada sought to have The Diviners — as well as Laurence’s previous novels The Stone Angel and A Jest of God — banned from school libraries. The battle to have the books banned made national headlines and, although it made the books more sought after, upset Laurence tremendously.

“Beverley said she was looking for an idea and so she started doing some research.” Randy says. “She found out that Alice Munro, down in her neck of Southern Ontario, was also experiencing somewhat the same thing with her book Lives of Girls and Women. In Alice’s case, it was a fundamentalist backlash about any sex in her stories.”

In her notes for Sunday’s performance, which will be read by five actors, Beverley acknowledges the battle between parent groups and school boards is not a thing of the past, but continues to this day.

“While I was writing this play, parents were voicing both support and concerns over the proposed Ontario Sexual Education Curriculum,” Beverley writes. “Their voices have helped me try to understand both sides of this story. As a parent, I know that our desire to protect our children can bring out the best and the worst of human nature.”

In If Truth Be Told, Beverley amalgamates Margaret Laurence and Alice Munro into a new character named Peg Dunlop. A successful writer living in British Columbia, she returns to her hometown of Wayford to take care of her ailing mother. Upon arriving home, she meets local high school English teacher Carmella, who eagerly assigns Peg’s book to her grade thirteen class.

However, upon hearing that the book has been assigned, a local parent group lead by the town’s zealous preacher, Harry Briggs, seeks to have the book banned from the classroom.

“The writer is trying to come to terms with her own life,” Randy says of the story. “Her marriage hasn’t worked, her mother is ill, and she is not in good shape personally, so it takes a big toll on her. The play is about where you draw the lines in terms of censorship, but done a very personal level.”

Although Randy never knew Margaret Laurence personally, he did encounter her during a workshop he ran at Trent University, where she served as Chancellor from 1981 to 1983.

“Margaret Lawrence sat in one of my seminars at Trent one time,” Randy says. “She was extremely shy from what I could see in that seminar. She was smart, but shy. People who did know her said that it was devastating to her when they tried to have her books banned from the schools.”

As is always the case with The Page on Stage series, Randy has managed to assemble an incredible group of performers to bring To Tell the Truth to life.

Reprising her role of Peg Dunlop from the original production of To Tell the Truth is Gemini award-winning actress Catherine Fitch. Catherine is joined by two additional members of the original cast: Anita La Selva as Carmella and Meghan Chalmers as Jennifer.

In the role of Harry Briggs, Randy welcomes back six-time Gemini award-winning actor Michael Riley. A familiar face on Canadian television, Michael is best known to audiences for his role as Brett Parker from Power Play, Elliott Sacks on This is Wonderland, and Dr. Tom on Being Erica.

Local favourite Linda Kash, who recently appeared in the third season of Fargo, will be completing the cast in the role of Maysie.

Although she is not performing in the reading, Beverley will be attending the reading and taking part in the pivotal “talk back” feature of the evening, which is always an important feature of every Page on the Stage reading.

After watching the performance, audience members will be able to ask the playwright and the actors about their thoughts on the performance and the subjects presented within the show.

New Stages’ The Page on Stage readings are among the best nights of theatrical performance in Peterborough. The scripts Randy selects are always filled with thought-provoking and timely material, and he always manages to assemble some of Ontario’s best theatrical performers for the readings.

It’s a true treat to see actors of this caliber perform in Peterborough, and it’s an affordable night of theatre that should never be missed. To Tell the Truth is an important telling of a darker time of literary history in Ontario, especially relevant with its inspiration being so close to Peterborough.

To Tell the Truth will be presented on Sunday, February 11th at Market Hall Performing Arts Centre. The show starts at 7:30 p.m., and tickets are $20 or $15 for students or art workers, available at the Market Hall Box Office, by phone at 705-749-1146, or online at markethall.org,