For almost 40 years, Howard Berry has been one of the most prolific members of the Peterborough Theatre Guild as the man behind the costume designs featured in many of the company’s most successful shows.

With a lifelong love for design and colour, a celebration of Howard’s costume work at the Guild — as well as his work a fashion designer and painter — is being featured at The Mount Community Centre this weekend in a three-day event titled “Howard Berry’s Passion for Colour: A Design Retrospective”.

“Colour has always been my only vital energy of life,” Howard says. “I was just born this crazy creative person. My mother would say that by three years of age, if she went and changed and put something on and came out and I didn’t like something, I’d scream and push. She thought it was the colour. She’d go and change and I’d be fine. By three or four, she’d take me shopping for clothes because it’d save a lot of angst.”

Featuring 26 of Howard’s most memorable costumes from the Peterborough Theatre Guild, 22 original paintings, original custom clothes designed privately by Howard, photo displays, Powerpoint presentations and more, Howard Berry’s Passion for Colour is a multimedia display that highlights the many aspects of Howard’s long career in design. Along with special events being held nightly and general viewing during the day, proceeds from the show are going to the Mount.

“Jane Werger called me in April of last year and said that she had considered doing an event,” Howard explains. “She said that the Theatre Guild had just had their 50th anniversary and she didn’t understand why they didn’t do anything to include the costumes I’ve designed for nearly forty years. That was fine by me because it’s not my style. I don’t like going around and tooting any horns. I like to stay quietly in the background and let the stuff I do be out front.

“But finally we agreed to do something, and she and I went to a couple of venues to see about holding something, and they were either not interested or the space was not appropriate. So suddenly The Mount came into our mind, and it was perfect. So I said ‘Why don’t we do a fundraiser for the Mount?’ So this became the project.”

Howard explains his eye for design and fashion started at a very early age.

“All my life I’ve been interested in design,” he says. “My father bought me my first sewing machine at the age of five. It was a little hand-cranked one. By age eight, I had a regular Singer machine and was making clothes for my mother and my sister.”

However, when Howard went to pursue fashion design as a student in the mid 1950s, he hit a bizarre stumbling block.

“When I was in high school, the school arranged for me to go to Ryerson to be interviewed to enroll in their design program,” Howard recalls. “When I got there, the woman at Ryerson said ‘Oh, you’re a man! We can’t have a man in the course. There are no men designers.’ I said ‘Who’s Christian Dior?’ She said ‘Well, that’s Europe. We don’t have men designers here.’

“So I had traveled by bus from Huntsville to Toronto all by myself for nothing. But I remembered that there were plenty of designers on Bloor Street. So I walked up to Bloor Street and went into a place owned by a designer named Ritchie Mosher and told him what had happened. Ritchie said ‘Oh, give me a break! You don’t want to go there — what you want to do is go to Galasso.'”

Howard signed up for a three-year course with the prestigious private design school run by Toronto-based designer Galasso, where Howard honed his talents. Howard wasn’t the only man under Galasso’s training, who took in 10 students a year. But upon graduating, Howard had some more choices to make.

“Having graduated, my father gave me a choice,” Howard recalls. “He said he’d send me to Paris to work as an apprentice and pay my way, or he’d set me up in a shop. So when you’re young and think you’re smart, I wondered why I’d need to go to Paris. So we opened a shop in Toronto on Avenue Road and we lasted about three years.

“So that has been my career all my life. All my life, I’ve done custom-made ladies clothing.”

Although Howard as worked at many jobs throughout his life, he has always returned to fashion as his main calling. Not only did he operate a shop in Toronto, but also one in St. Catherines where he was involved in designing costumes for the early days of the Shaw Festival. Upon relocating to Peterborough in the 1970s, Howard quickly found his way to the Peterborough Theatre Guild designing costumes for a production of Oliver!.

“They must have realized I was something crazy,” Howard says. “On opening night of Oliver, they didn’t like one of the costumes from the rehearsal. So I ran up to wardrobe and grabbed something, and then I was downstairs on the floor, cutting the hem and cutting the neck and completely redoing the costume before they went on stage.”

With his costumes spanning decades at the Guild, the costume rooms at the theatre are filled with Howard’s designs. Often the dresses will be recycled and rented for different productions. However, Howard can remember what show each dress was for, and often exactly who wore the costume.

“I love the period shows, like A Doll’s House and The Heiress and shows like that,” Howard says. “I love researching the period and trying to accomplish that. Fabrics that were used then are not the fabrics that are used now. So you need to come up with a fabric that looks right. Sometimes I have to dye the costumes in a laundry tub to get the colour I want.

“But I also must say I love the big crazy musicals. The Mikado was spectacular to do. La Cage aux Folles was a designer’s dream for colour. We have a team of ladies at the Guild who always sew with me when we do a show. We take over the upstairs, and it took ten ladies each one month to make each individual robe for La Cage aux Folles. That was a very exciting time.”

But possibly one of Howard’s most outstanding productions was in 2015 when he took on both costumes and set design for the Guild’s outstanding production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats.

“Cats was a whole other story,” Howard recalls. “It was a biggie. I did sets and costumes for that. But the thing was that, for Cats, you didn’t just make a costume. A cat’s head matches its body, so I worked with Carol Jones who was in charge of makeup at the time, and we went through catalogues to order wigs that would be the right colour to match the makeup and costume.

“Then I had a friend come in who styled each wig to get the character of each cat. Then when it came to the makeup, we had to match that in the face. So we had to make the costume to match everything else. That was a lot of fun. We had a huge team of workers on that. We had twelve ladies doing costumes, and another eight ladies doing hair and makeup every night.”

All the events for “Howard Berry’s Passion for Colour: A Design Retrospective” take place at The Mount Community Centre (1545 Monaghan Rd., Peterborough). Tickets for the special events are available online (links provided below) or at Happenstance Books & Yarn (44 Queen St., Lakefield, 705-652-7535), Fabricland (1154 Chemong Rd., Peterborough, 705-748-4985), Grainger’s Cleaners (885 Lansdowne St W., Peterborough, 705-742-3831), and Brant Basics (296 George St. N., Peterborough, 705-748-2291).

First, on Friday, May 26th, there will be a Wine and Chocolate tasting event featuring musical performances by Warren Chambers and Rick Hiltz. The event takes place from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. with five pairings served every 15 minutes. Tickets are $20, available online or at one of the ticket locations listed above.

On Saturday, May 27th, there will be a tribute to Cats in the Mount auditorium with members of the original cast donning their original costumes and wigs and entertaining attendees from 7:30 until 9:30 p.m. The event costs $20 and will have food and drink samples provided by The Publican House and SKH Catering. Tickets are $20, available online or at one of the ticket locations listed above.

On Sunday, May 28th, there will be a “Sweet & Savoury Sunday” in the Mount auditorium from 12 to 2 p.m. featuring chamber music by Hiltz and Company and food donated by The Kawartha Butter Tart Factory, Black Honey, The Magic Rolling Pin, and Chasing the Cheese. Tickets are $15, available online or at one of the ticket locations listed above.

For those that are unable to attend the special events, public viewing of the exhibit is available on Saturday, May 27th from 10 a.m. and noon and from 2 to 4 p.m. and then again on Sunday, May 28th from 2 to 4 p.m. The suggested donation at the door is $5, with all proceeds going to The Mount.

“What I’m trying to create is an event where people walk in and are amazed,” Howard says. “It’s a passion for colour. I’m staging it so, at the moment they walk into the foyer to buy their ticket, there will be a colour behind the ticket seller. The La Cage cloaks will be hanging on the open doors, and when they walk through I want everything to just be a mass of colour. I want the whole thing to just be over the top.”

I want everything to just be a mass of colour. I want the whole thing to just be over the top.

Howard will be at the exhibit to meet guests and talk about his decades in design and the theatre. Howard is a wonderful storyteller, and his memories are witty and often hilarious. He could fill a book of tales from designing costumes for the Guild alone.

But what is Howard’s next project? That’s a little less clear.

“There was a point where I was doing three or four shows a year, but I’m doing less now,” Howard admits. “You need to be careful because it can become your whole life. It’s fun, until you realize you need something else.

“I don’t know if I would do another big musical. They are a lot of work. I might, if the temptation came and the right one was offered. There are about two I’d like to do. I’d love to do Mamma Mia. I want to design those crazy jumpsuits they wore. I think that’d be fabulous. I’d also love to do Pirates of Penzance. I think that would be a hoot.”

Howard Berry’s Passion for Colour is a tribute to one of the true treasures in our theatre community. For more information, visit www.howardspassionforcolour.com.

On Sunday, May 28th, Peterborough’s New Stages Theatre Company wraps up its current season with a staged reading of Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced at the Market Hall Performing Arts Centre.

For the final presentation in New Stages’ highly successful The Page on Stage Readings Series, producer Randy Read reunites the cast members of last year’s Toronto production, staged by Mirvish Productions and Hope and Hell Theatre Company, to recreate their original roles in this provocative (although often funny) play about race, religion, cultural appropriation, and Islamophobia.

This is a one-night-only chance for a Peterborough audience to see a play The Globe and Mail described as a “powerful attempt to articulate the experiences of Muslims in the West, post-9/11”. While the play is provocative, the Globe says “Akhtar’s aim is constructive. When we’re done with our outraged gasps, he demands our deeper understanding.”

“It’s a pretty fascinating play,” says Randy, who first saw the production during its original run in New York City. “It’s so funny, but so full of ideas. It’s very timely.”

Written by Pakistani-American playwright Ayad Akhtar, Disgraced was first staged in Chicago in 2012. In 2013, the play won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and opened on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre in September 2014, where it was nominated for a Tony award for Best Play. Disgraced also had the unique distinction of being the most produced play in the United States during the 2015-2016 theatrical season.

The Toronto production of Disgraced opened at the Panasonic Theatre in April 2016, receiving positive reviews. Mirvish Productions will be restaging Disgraced later this November at the same theatre.

“Disgraced is about Amir, a Muslim lawyer, who changes his last name to more of an East Indian name to fit in more strongly at his law firm,” Randy explains. “He and his wife have a dinner party and what is a witty evening explodes into a battleground over race, religion, and class in the 21st century.”

Reprising their roles in Disgraced are Raoul Bhaneja as Amir, Birgette Solem as his wife Emily, Gabe Grey as his nephew Abe, and Karen Glave as Amir’s law firm colleague Jory. Also appearing in the drama will be Alex Poch-Goldin in the role of Jory’s art curator husband Issac, stepping in for actor Michael Rubenfeld who is currently touring in Europe. Local audiences will be most familiar with Alex as the writer of 4th Line Theatre’s successful production of The Bad Luck Bank Robbers.

Together, the characters represent four separate segments of society: Muslim, white, African-American, and Jewish.

In his directorial notes to Disgraced, Akhtar writes “although Disgraced has many ideas in it … odd as it may seem, the play was written as an entertainment. Something of a situation comedy, that becomes an office thriller, that becomes a comedy of manners, that becomes a play of romantic intrigue, and finally ends in domestic tragedy.”

“I’m always looking for plays that enrich our understanding of the world in a potent way, but plays that are also laced with humour,” Randy says. “If there isn’t humour there, people tune out, they turn off. They need the humour to allow them to think more deeply about the play.”

Although it was first written in 2012 about the problems faced by Muslims living in America after 9/11, Disgraced is even more relevant given the current White House administration’s stance on Muslim peoples. However, as Randy points out, the prejudices are not solely that of Americans: they affect our own community as well.

“Peterborough is becoming more diverse,” Randy says. “I love the idea of people maintaining their culture. People should be able to maintain their identity and we should respect that. But even in Canada, there is still a discommode that people from other nations should just purely become Canadian. Even last year, with the fire at the mosque, obviously that tension still exists.

“As Canadians we’d like to ignore it, but it’s there. I think people need to see Disgraced because they need to see how important it is not to deny who you are, and how easily we judge other people according to labels instead of according to who they are.”

One of the most popular events of the New Stages’ season is the The Page on Stage Readings Series where Randy invites professional performers from across Ontario to do dramatic readings of plays that are chosen to not only entertain, but to often challenge and provoke the audience.

“Audience members become collaborators with the readings,” Randy says. “They become a much more equal part of the experience, as they are collaborating with the actors to create the world of the play. They are not just consumers that come in and say ‘Show me what you’ve got.’ They become more part of the experience.

“There is something pure about the relationship between the actor and the words. It is theatre in its purest form.”

There is much truth to what Randy says. Having attended most of the New Stages readings this season, I can attest to the fact that the readings are very addictive. It is a unique way to experience professional theatre without the time or budget that full productions require.

VIDEO: Trailer for the Toronto production of Disgraced

After the Disgraced staged reading, New Stages will also be revealing its shows and readings for the 2017-2018 season. Although nothing has been revealed yet, a large part of the season will be devoted to the reading series.

“I can’t tell you how many subscribers say to me ‘I love the shows and the cabaret, but I really love the readings’,” Randy concludes.

Disgraced will be performed at the Market Hall on Sunday, May 28th at 7:30 p.m. General admission tickets are $20 or $15 for students and art workers.

Tickets are available at the Market Hall box office (140 Charlotte St., Peterborough), by phone at 705-749-1146, or online at markethall.org. Tickets are also available (cash only) at Moondance (425 George St. N., Peterborough, 705-742-9425).

For three performance only beginning on Thursday, May 25th, students of Lakefield College School will present their production of Neil Simon’s comedy Rumors at the school’s Bryan Jones Theatre.

Directed by Tina St. John and Dayna Taylor, Rumors is a theatrical farce filled with secrets, lies, and laughs. And best of all, like all Lakefield College School productions, admission to the show is free to the public.

Neil Simon broke out of his usual mode of storytelling to write Rumors, written during a dark time in his life. With his marriage on the rocks and grieving the death of his son-in-law in a car accident, Simon wanted to push through the tragedy by throwing himself into a new show, and for the first time he decided to write a classic farce.

Rumors made its premiere at San Francisco’s Old Globe Theatre in September 1988 and moved to Broadway the following month. The show won a Tony Award as well as Drama Desk Award for costuming. Although not one of Simon’s most famous productions, the play was considered a hit in New York at the time of its release and is now one of the most popular productions for student theatre.

Rumors is a show about the unraveling of high society in an attempt to keep secrets during times of trouble. It is the 10th wedding anniversary of New York Deputy Mayor Charlie Brock and his wife Myra, and his friends and distinguished guests have been invited to his home to celebrate.

However, when Charlie’s lawyer Ken (Josh Garrison) and his wife Chris (Meg Hicks) show up as the first guests to arrive, they find Charlie with a non-fatal gunshot wound to the head, the servants and staff gone, and Myra nowhere to be found.

As Ken and Chris rush around to cover up what has happened before anyone finds out and keep Charlie’s good name out of the high society rumour mill, their spiral of lies creates a whirlpool of confusion as guests continue to arrive.

Ken and Chris find accomplices in Charlie’s accountant Len (Braeson Agar) and his wife Claire (Robyn-Lee Hotte), while attempting to keep Charlie’s condition a secret from therapist Ernie (Ethan Jiang) and his wife Cookie (Rose Bouchard) and Senate nominee Ben (Glen Dunk) and his wife Cassie (Mikayla Stoodley).

However, with no servants, half-prepared food, and hosts who don’t show up, it soon becomes clear to everyone that more is going on than what it seems. With the characters having something to lose by being present at the scene of whatever actually happened, they agree it’s in everyone’s best interests for nobody to find out what happened to Charlie.

Of course, in a farce nothing ever works out according to plan and, as the evening rolls on, the cover-up gets larger and wilder.

It is always a treat to visit Lakefield College School for their drama productions, with excellent production values and an always-talented energetic cast. Rumors is no exception when it comes to offering a capable show filled with fantastic young actors.

The strong connection between the ensemble cast is the show’s main strength. With rapid-fire lines and reactions, the actors on stage masterfully take the audience through a very wordy production filled with complicated and rambling monologues and a variety of physical comedy. This young and exceptionally skilled cast takes on Rumors without breaking a sweat.

Josh Garrison and Meg Hicks get the show rolling as Ken and Chris Gorman. Ken is loud and frantic, while Chris is dignified and never loses her lady-like qualities. Together they build the foundation of the show by bringing the audience into the chaos from the moment the lights go up, not letting the backstory bog down the production so the show can get going immediately.

Although much of Josh’s performance sees him running around frantically screaming, Meg manages to maintain a sense of class in the face of madness, making her very much an anchor for the audience as the show gets more inane.

Braeson Agar and Robyn-Lee Hotte give twp of the strongest performances in the show as Len and Claire Ganz. A little more streetwise than the Gormans, Len talks tough while Claire has a sort of crass cynicism to her. They offer a different dynamic then the Gormans as an alternative to handling the situation.

I often felt I would react to the drama more like the Ganzs then the Gormans, which had me often migrating more towards them than the primary couple. However, the madness eventually pulls them in and they become strong supports to the Gormans.

Ethan Jiang and Rose Bouchard take on the show’s character roles as Ernie and Cookie Cusak. The comic relief of the show, Ethan creates humour by underplaying the mild-mannered Ernie, while Rose masterfully takes on a character who is completely daft. Together they make an endearing comedy duo that gets most of the genuine laughs in the show.

Although non-intentional, there’s something about the way that Ben Dunk and Mikayla Stoodley play Glen and Cassie Cooper that immediately brings to mind Donald and Melania Trump. From the way the duo wears their hair to their costumes, I couldn’t help but snicker when they arrived on the stage.

If it wasn’t deliberate, as the directors claimed when I asked, goodness knows the characters are just as miserable in their marriage. Although the party already seems full without their inclusion, Ben and Mikayla bring some real fireworks to the scene, setting the tension to a full-on boil.

Also appearing in Rumors are Ali Attyani, LJ Simmons, and Richard Xia as the police officers who arrive at the house. Although performing a small role, Richard Xia really brings it on strong as the angriest police officer in drama. His performance can only be called pure comedic aggression.

Lakefield College School often astonishes me with their incredible sets, but the set for Rumors is far and above one of the best sets I have ever seen. Designed by Harold Davies, the two-storey mansion is so well created I felt that I could have moved in and lived on the set quite comfortably.

I also want to make note of the costumes in Rumors. With the women in elegant dresses and the men in classic suits, the costumes bring an air of decadence to the stage, which clashes against the zany escapades. I really liked the style and elegance of the production, which captured the feeling of the New York elite.

Rumors is more than just a farcical comedy. It’s a window into the madness of high society, and how it takes a lot of effort to maintain ambition, vanity, ego, and status — perhaps more energy than it’s worth. But it also is a comedy where one lie plays upon another, creating a situation that gets bigger and bigger as the show goes on. What really happen to Charlie? Where is Myra? Will the truth ever come out? Does it really matter?

It is always a joy to go to Lakefield College School. I love the beautiful Bryan Jones Theatre, the new faces on stage, the professionalism of the cast and crew, and the inviting atmosphere of the school. But the most astonishing thing about their productions is that they are free to the public. It’s a great night out and a way to support some fresh talent.

Rumors will be performed at the Bryan Jones Theatre at Lakefield College School on Thursday, May 25th and Friday, May 26th at 7:30 p.m. with a matinee performance at 4 p.m. on Saturday, May 27th. Admission to all performances is free.