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, May 18 to Wednesday, May 24.

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 July, 4th Line Theatre in Millbrook is kicking off its 26th season with the world premiere of a new historical play recognizing Canada’s greatest contributions to victory in the Second World War: No. 6 Group RCAF of Bomber Command.

Written by award-winning playwright David S. Craig, Bombers: Reaping the Whirlwind tells the story of Peter Benton, a Canadian heavy bomber pilot who flew sorties over Germany during World War II (WWII).

At its peak in the early 1940s, No. 6 Group Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) comprised 15 heavy bomber squadrons that operated in Europe out of airfields in Yorkshire, England. The squadrons in No. 6 Group raided U-boat bases in France and conducted night bombing raids on industrial complexes and urban centres in Germany. In all, No. 6 Group flew 40,822 sorties and dropped 126,122 tons of bombs — and lost 814 aircraft and 4,203 airmen in the process.

“This play is an incredible tribute to the men and women who served, most of whom are no longer with us,” says 4th Line Theatre’s Managing Artistic Director Kim Blackwell. “And for their families, who work tirelessly to ensure the sacrifice is not forgotten, Bombers allows them to honour their family members.”

Playwright David S. Craig, who has written 29 dramatic works that have won multiple theatre awards, has been working on Bombers for more than 30 years. In 1985, he began interviewing veterans of WWII and inviting former air crew members and women who served in the RCAF to share their stories of the war and life in Bomber Command. He is thrilled that his vision is being brought to the stage at 4th Line Theatre this summer.

“There is no other theatre in Canada where a play this epic could be staged,” Craig says. “Bombers has a large cast, epic musical numbers, and action-packed scenes of bombing runs over Europe. 4th Line is the perfect place to realize such an ambitious piece.”

Bombers will star 4th Line Theatre founder Robert Winslow, returning to the stage after a year-long hiatus, as the present-day Peter Benton. The play also stars Michael Cox as the young Peter Benton, Colin Doyle, Erin Humphry, Shaina Silver-Baird, and Deb Williams.

The ensemble cast features 30 actors playing more than 60 characters. Veteran actors include Lucas DeLuca, Kait Dueck, Rob Fortin, Matt Gilbert, Justin Hiscox, Mark Hiscox, Ken Houston, Kelsey Powell and Andrei Preda, apprentice actors include Justin Laurie and Frances Loiselle, and community volunteers include Madeleine Bryenton, Brady Carveth, Liam Davidson, Mike Davidson, Angelina Haines, Abby Hatherly, Emily Jones, Ethan King, Sarah Livingston, Emma Meinhardt, Peter Spasov, Phil Stott, and Samuelle Weatherdon.

The creative team includes Glenn Davidson (set design), Karyn McCallum (costume design), Justin Hiscox (musical direction, original music, and arrangements), Monica Dottor (choreography), and Esther Vincent (sound design). The stage management team include: Fiona Jones, Alanna Wrenshall, and apprentice Christine Mepstead.

The staging of this play at 4th Line Theatre in 2017 — the sesquicentennial year of Canada’s Confederation — encourages us to remember this part of our history and the sacrifices that Canadians have made.

When Canada entered WWII on September 10, 1939, the RCAF was our country’s smallest military service. By the end of the war, Canada had the fourth-largest air force of the Allied powers. Out of a population of 11 million at the time, more than one million Canadian men and women served in the military during WWII, with a quarter of these serving in the RCAF — many of them with Bomber Command.

Serving on a bomber crew was one of the riskiest roles for men in uniform in WWII. Typically, a seven-man crew flew night sorties in a four-engined heavy bomber like the Handley Page Halifax or the Avro Lancaster (some of which were manufactured in Ontario). Take-offs were often tense, with the aircraft roaring down the runway loaded with tons of bombs and more than 6,000 litres of highly flammable aviation gasoline.

At high altitudes, the crew faced sub-zero temperatures which sometimes froze their oxygen masks. During sorties, the bombers encountered German fighter planes patrolling the night skies over Europe as well as powerful searchlights targetting the bombers and flak batteries filling the sky with shrapnel.

If a plane was damaged it was difficult for the crew to escape and, if they managed to survive being shot down over over enemy territory, they would become prisoners of war.

Indeed, that was the fate of the father of David Ferry, who is directing Bombers. The renowned and award-winning Canadian director’s father served in Bomber Command, was shot down over Europe, and spent time in a German prisoner of war camp.

While women did not serve in combat, they also played a significant role in Bomber Command. Members of the RCAF Women’s Division were stationed in England during WWII and performed important support work on the ground, such as being coding technicians, operating radios, and plotting aircraft positions. Civilian women were also essential factory workers, building the bombs and planes used during the war.

Bombers not only honours the contribution and sacrifice of the men and women of Bomber Command during WWII, but the play also asks us to reflect on the price of freedom.

VIDEO: The Avro Lancaster 1941

Bombers: Reaping the Whirlwind runs from Tuesdays to Saturdays from July 4th to July 29th at the Winslow Farm (779 Zion Line, Millbrook), with an additional performance on Monday, July 24th. Previews will be held on July 4th and 5th with opening night on Thursday, July 6th.

Single tickets are $38 for adults and $32 for youth. Subscription tickets (which include one ticket to Bombers: Reaping The Whirlwind in July and one ticket to The History of Drinking in Cavan in August) are $66 for adults and $56 for youth.

Tickets can be purchased by phone at 705-932-4445, online at 4thlinetheatre.on.ca, or at 4th Line Theatre’s Box Office at 4 Tupper Street in Millbrook or at the Peterborough Museum and Archives at 300 Hunter Street E. (Museum Drive) in Peterborough.

On Saturday, May 20th, Amber Coast Theatrical presents a unique concert event at Showplace’s Nexicom Studio. The Kawartha’s Rising Stars Mentorship Concert features some of Peterborough’s beloved musical theatre performers paired up with talented local high school students for a full day of mentorship, culminating in an all-star concert to be performed that night.

It will prove to be a memorable night of music featuring the talents of performers we already love, but spotlighting new voices who will form the future of Peterborough theatre.

“The event is very much like The Voice, minus the auditions,” explains Amber Coast’s founder Lucas DeLuca, the organizer behind the event.

“Each pairing of mentor and student will do a duet, and then the mentor will coach the student throughout the day on a solo number as well. After an intensive day of shaping the two numbers, all the pairings will come together for a concert in the evening. So you’ll get two numbers from the student, and one number from the mentor as part of the duet.”

A familiar face in the Peterborough theatre community, Lucas came to Peterborough from his home in Torrance, California to attend Trent University but quickly found himself wrapped up in the theatre community.

The Kawartha’s Rising Stars Mentorship Concert came out of inspiration from Lucas’ experiences as part of the local theatre scene.

“When I got to Trent, the community was bursting at the seams with talent,” Lucas recalls. “Talk about being at the right place at the right time. It was a total fluke. I got real lucky, and I was so blown away.”

I first noticed Lucas in 2014 with his show-stopping solo in The Anne Shirley Theatre Company’s presentation of Spring Awakening. Since then, he has become a highly regarded performer on many stages via a number of different companies.

“I started with the Anne Shirley Theater Company,” Lucas says. “There I was working with Brian McDonald who pulled me into Next to Normal, Art for Awareness’s’ inaugural show. Then I met Geoff and Rachel Bemrose, which led to me working with Justin Hiscox at St. James Players, and I was at 4th Line Theatre with Rob Winslow.

“It’s been a series of really lucky breaks in which I’ve met the most incredible people, and those people have been the most warm and loving and kind. In Peterborough I meet someone spectacular every day, and it’s such a blessing.”

The Rising Star Mentorship Concert is Lucas’ way to try to give local students the same sort of opportunity he has.

“I was coming into this community as a university student and never had this sort of experience before,” Lucas explains. “Some students are luckier than others; they get to experience one community connection and then are catapulted into another. But there are students who may not have those opportunities yet.

“The idea behind this mentorship concert was to extend invitations to all of the drama departments in as many schools as possible across the Kawarthas, including Port Hope, Lindsay and Peterborough, and see what we heard back. Because we are a fairly new drama company, the responses were a bit slow but we managed to get six students.”

Taking the spotlight at the concert include high school students Rene Frank, Keely Wilson, Jayde Taylor, Kate Bemrose, Meagan Vaughan, and Sydney Harwood Jones. They will be paired with local theatre favorites Kate Suhr, Hannah Bailey, Caitlin Currie, Erik Feldcamp, Brian McDonald, and Lucas himself, with musical accompaniment by Justin Hiscox.

“What we’ve done is pair up the students with individual mentors,” Lucas says. “We’ve been able to find people who have learned in multiple different ways. For example, Erik Feldcamp, who some would say is a fairly new talent, is entirely self taught but has an immense ability with performance and entertainment.

“Then we have Kate Suhr who is a homegrown talent who has made herself a name in Toronto. We’ve also pulled in Hannah Bailey and Brian McDonald, who have become Peterborough staples in their own way.”

Although the mentors and students will spend the day developing their performances for that evening, the matches have already been made and correspondence has already been happening between the pairs.

But, as Lucas reveals, this is only the first concert that Amber Coast Productions will be presenting this year. In September they will be doing a spotlight on Justin Hiscox’s nearly two decades of contribution to musical theatre in a show they are calling ‘Justin’s Jukebox’.

“We are going to try to get as many performers we can who have performed in shows where Justin has been the musical director,” Lucas says. “We hope that each can do at least one song from different shows Justin has done. Justin has been doing music for as close to twenty years. That will be another really exciting show for us.”

Amber Coast Theatrical has another production planned for the end of 2017, and then Lucas will be teaming up with Elizabeth Moody to direct the Peterborough Theatre Guild’s 2018 musical. However, for the time being the details of those shows are held tightly in the vault. For the moment, Lucas’ focus is on enriching the next wave of local talent and introducing them to Peterborough’s rich theatrical community.

“With all the community connections I had, it was like I’d meet one person and that would lead to another person,” Lucas says. “I want to find a way to gift the professional development and community connections that I had to young students.”

The Kawartha’s Rising Stars Mentorship Concert is going to be a fantastic night of music featuring many of my favourite local performers and a way to be introduced to the future of Peterborough theatre. It is a night that I’m highly anticipating, and a great way to welcome the newest batch of players into our community. Furthermore, at $5 admission, the show is an affordable night of performance.

The Kawartha’s Rising Stars Mentorship Concert happens at 8 p.m. on Saturday, May 20th in the Nexicom Studio downstairs at Showplace Performance Centre (290 George St. N., Peterborough). Admission is $5 at the door, or pay what you can.