Date: series of workshops, Feb. 15, 22, 29 and March 7, 2024
Location: Centre Wakefield La Peche
Description: Workshop

Theatre Wakefield was thrilled to present a second series of storytelling workshops, Beading Your Story, with Indigenous artist Louise Profeit-Leblanc over four weeks in February and March 2024. The invitation came through multi-disciplinary artists and facilitators Iris Kiewiet and Destini Broom. In this next phase, Louise brought a strong storytelling aspect to the project: participants circled around a canvas frame, hearing stories from Louise and learning how to share their own – while engaging their hearts and hands in a piece of beading art shared with many others. This series of workshops showed the power and strength of the Indigenous traditions and ways of being in the world.

Date: February 18, 2024
Location: Centre Wakefield La Peche
Description: Special Event.

This year’s theme was “Wild” — teams comprised of local groups donned wild costumes and performed choose-your-own-adventure styles of entertainment on a runway leading to a hospital bed. This event was 100% volunteer run and all proceeds from the event went to support improvements to the living environment in long-term care facilities in the Des Collines area. Theatre Wakefield contributed the Pyramus and Thisbe excerpt from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Date: March 25, 2023
Description: Special Event

The workshop with facilitator Farah Fancy on DEI issues was provocative, challenging and inspiring. Thirty-five cultural workers and artists attended from our region. Through a wide variety of techniques and exercises — from dancing our “JEDI Warrior,” to presenting non-traditional fairy tales to each other — Farah helped us to understand the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class and gender, and how these intersecting and overlapping social identities can be both empowering and oppressing.

Date: May – September, 2023
Description: Special Event.

This project offered the English language community of LaPêche the opportunity to come together to design, create and present two evenings of theatre featuring illuminated hand-made puppets ranging from small to bigger-than-life-size. The theme and storyline were based on a feisty little girl who gets lost in the forest, then finds her way back home with the help of the woodland creatures and plants around her. This, our biggest and most complex creation project ever, had at its heart our belief that bringing a diverse group of people together in a welcoming environment to work creatively over weeks and months would lead to a deepened appreciation for the arts, strengthened ties among them, and a beautiful piece of art. And we were right!

Date: May 19-21, 2023
Description: Special Event

Three members of the Canadian Academy of Mask and Puppetry (CAMP) — the training arm of the acclaimed Old Trout Puppet Workshop in Calgary — came to Wakefield to offer a three-day workshop on how to create and perform with puppets. Theatre Wakefield invited a core group of 10-15 enthusiastic community members (largely visual artists from Place des Artistes de Farrellton) to learn from these master puppeteers.

Date: June 3,10,17,24, 2023
Description: Special Event

The visual artists who took part in training with CAMP then led a series of four workshops over the summer with an estimated 100 participants from the community (including at least 30 children) to create over 80 puppets of all sizes. We chose to design and build lantern puppets that were lit from within by LED lights — covered in muslin, the puppets shimmered when the lights bounced off the muslin, creating beautiful and unforgettable images.

Date: September 16 and 23, 2023
Description: Special Event 

We auditioned for all the speaking roles in the play, invited local musicians and choristers, asked a Chelsea dance school’s young dancers to participate as fireflies, engaged a writer, choreographer, choir leader and director. After many rehearsals, we performed the piece just after dusk at Maison Fairbairn as part of Theatre Wakefield’s TaDa! Performing Arts Festival. Tickets for the performances sold out three days after they went on sale; over 400 people attended.

Producer: Roberta Lloyd
Artistic Director/Co-scriptwriter: Mary Ellen MacLean
Visual Artists: Geneviève Cloutier, Kathryn Drysdale, CJ Fleury, Patrick Thompson
Choreographer: Kelsey Walsh
Composer/Choir Director:Vanessa Lachance
Co-scriptwriter:Paul Hetzler
Performers: Osa Natalie Fraser, Dawn Moore, Steve Powers, Elle Gray
Puppeteers: Noelle Walsh, Rosemary Millar Bunch, Mae Levoy Moore, Beatrice Gaudet, Finley Douglas Drake, Eliza Douglas Drake, Hazel Kirvan
Fireflies: Florence Hamel, Jasper and Jenson Smith, Lizeth and Stefan Rodriquez, Floriane Zamora, Pippa and Finlay Murchison, Annaliese, Julian and Ciarán MacLean, Rosie and Charlie, Robin and Glynn Haultain, Gemma, Emmett and Avery, Hazel
Stage Manager: Jesse Kahat
Tech Director: Claude Laroche
Marketing: Rebecca Russell, Rob Linke

Date: May 25, 2023
Directed by: Yvette Nolan and Joel Bernbaum
Producer: Andrea Rowe
Featuring: Teresa Bandrowska, Osa Natalie Fraser, Melisa Kamibayashi, Ian McMullen, Steve Powers, Lo Sirois
Playwrights: Ann Cavlovic, Jeff Froggett, Hillary Jocelyn, Dawn Moore, Leia Ranger-Drouin, Laura Wesley
Description: Playreading

From January to May, the Wakefield Writers Festival worked with theatre artists Joel Bernbaum and Yvette Nolan to select and guide playwrights from our community who were interested in writing ten-minute verbatim theatre plays, coaching them via zoom. When the plays were ready, Theatre Wakefield auditioned six actors from the community to play multiple parts, and organized rehearsals directed by Joel and Yvette. The six ten-minute pieces were presented as part of the Wakefield Writers Fête 2023 — both in person to a sold-out audience, and via live-stream.

Date: July 24 – August 4, 2023
Description: Summer Camp
Camp Director: Jesse Kahat
Coordinator: Andrea Rowe

These two one-week theatre camps set out to teach young people aged 5-12 some basic acting techniques along with singing, dancing and crafting. The objective of the camp was to expose young people to the performing arts through fun, hands-on activities; each week ended with a performance for family and friends.

Date: September 15-17, 22-24, 2023
Description: 9th Annual Festival

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Date: October 28, 2023
Description: Ghost Story reading

Director and MC: Steve Powers
Stage Manager: Lisa Waldick
Writers and Readers: Mike Barker, Cathy Edwards, Laurie Gough, Sue Gravel, Glenn Leckie, Phil Jenkins, Melisa Kamibayashi, Leia Ranger-Drouin
Musicians: Neal Sundet, Wim Kok
Set and Costumes: Vanessa Passmore

We invited members of the community to write and submit ghost/horror stories several months in advance, then we choose six to read to the public. We engaged make-up artists for all the story readers, helped them with their costumes, hired two musicians to play live, spooky music during the readings, and engaged a visual artist to design an eight-foot table littered with the artefacts of what we imagined ghosts and goblins would eat. The premise was that this was a dinner party hosted by one Dr. Painsworth, after which the guests would read their stories for each other. We were able to offer face painting to the audience members, which were a hit! Almost 100 people attended the show.

Date: November 25, 2023
Description: Special Event

A special evening event to celebrate our 20th anniversary – a year late, due to COVID. The event celebrated the long and significant contribution Theatre Wakefield has made to our community, taking a nostalgic look back at memorable moments from our past, and projecting into our future. The evening featured skits by Theatre Wakefield alumni, scenes from plays and songs we have performed over the years. Hosted by Scott and Éric Hébert-Daly.

Date: December 22, 2023
Description: TW Presents

Theatre Wakefield presented Bear & Co.’s version of A Child’s Christmas in Wales three days before Christmas. Done as a two-hander under the direction of Eleanor Crowder, actors Nicholas Amott and Rachel Eugster breathed life into the characters Thomas created, shared their own holiday memories, and sent our spirits soaring with midwinter harmonies. The evening ended with a CarolSing with the whole audience. Over 125 adults and children attended.

Date: May 2022
Description: Festival

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Date: May 24, 2022
Description: Special Event

Seniors Create gave seniors in our community the chance to express themselves through movement and the visual arts. Facilitated by the late Tedd Robinson, a professional contemporary dance artist, and Diane Lemire, local visual artist, about a dozen seniors worked together to learn about their movement capabilities, the basics of acting/dancing, and explored and expressed themselves through themes they chose collectively. Those interested in the visual arts created the set for the piece. A young dance artist, Elizabeth Emond-Stevenson, assisted Tedd and participated in the work. COVID postponed the TaDa! Festival where the piece was to premiere, but eventually it went ahead in May 2022.

Performers: 

Date: June 17, 21, 2022
Description: Special Event

Following its success in the fall of 2021, Theatre Wakefield organized two more Drag Queen Story Hours: two drag queens visited two elementary schools in the area (Eardley Elementary and Pierre Elliott Trudeau Elementary) to read illustrated story books about diversity, being proud and accepting of oneself even if we feel different from others — and celebrating those differences. The entire schools participated with two grades at a time filing into the school gym for the program (with each geared to a different age group). The drag queens read, danced, talked about their own journeys, and responded with sensitivity to questions from the kids. Again, organized by the amazing Lara Guenette.

Date: August 24, 2022
Description: Summer Camp

Jesse Kahat ran our one-week camp, Hooray for Hollywood!, at Centre Wakefield LaPêche this year. Our first camp in several years, we were thrilled to have 16 children sign up and learn about theatre from this very talented young arts professional.

Date: November 18, 19, 25-27, 2022
Description: Wakefield Players

Playwright: Margaret Raether
Based on the P.G. Wodehouse stories

Produced by David Park
Directed by Claude Laroche
Stage Manager: Shelley Harrison
Set Design: Larry Laxdal
Costume Design: Vanessa Passmore
Lighting Design: Claude Laroche

Performers: Gabriel Milling, Jim Potter, Mike Barker, Otiena Ellwand, Stephanie Muller-Kavanagh, Steve Powers

Our Fall comedy, Jeeves at Sea, was very popular with audiences, attracting 575 people over five shows —  78% capacity of Gwen Shea Hall in the Centre Wakefield LaPêche. It was our most popular show since Into the Woods in 2015 – from this and our TaDa Festival, we realized that our audiences were back after COVID!

Date: December 11, 2022
Description: Special Event

This 12-week theatre program for eight youth and seniors, taught them acting and performance skills, ending with a performance in December on stage at the Centre Wakefield La Pêche. The project had been conceived for youth, but low registration (despite heavy promotion) led us to open the project up to all ages. Taught by local professional actress Mary Ellen MacLean, students learned more physical awareness on stage, various movement techniques through improvisation, some voice work, and how to work together as an “ensemble.” The project ended with a group performance at the Centre Wakefield LA Pêche.

Date: May, July, 2021
Location: Zoom, various outdoor locations
Description: Playreading

These monthly, small-scale, no-fuss readings of professional plays began on zoom, then went live outdoors. The aim was to keep our pool of local actors sharp, bring new actors into the fold, and give some people interested in performance a taste of theatre during the COVID lock-down. Led by Geoff Aucoin

Date: August 2021
Location: Maison Fairbairn House’s outdoor stage
Description: Special Event

A variety show like no other, La Pêche Has Le Talent invited seasoned performers and enthusiastic amateurs  to dance, sing, lip sync, joke around, or otherwise let loose to illustrate the talent of our friends and neighbours. This was a free, live outdoor event at Fairbairn House during COVID. Led by Geoff Aucoin.

Date: October, 2021
Location: Wakefield Elementary School
Description: Special Event

Drag queens and kings read stories to children at the local elementary school about daring to be who you really are. This project captured the imagination and play of the gender fluidity of childhood, and gave kids glamorous, positive and unabashedly queer role models. The performance elicited support from the Low Down in the form of a dithyrambic editorial by Trevor Greenaway, and it was chosen as one of the top stories of 2021 by the same local rag! Led by the courageous Lara Guenette.

Date: October, 2021
Location: LaFab sur Mill, Chelsea
Description: Playreading

A playreading of a verbatim theatre piece about homelessness, Home is a Beautiful Word by Saskatoon playwright Joel Bernbaum was a co-production with Wakefield Writers Fête that brought a new literary audience to a TW production. Also the first hybrid presentation: livestreamed and in-person. A poem was commissioned and read by Algonquin Albert Dumont before the reading, a Q&A followed the performance with members of social agencies for homelessness, and the next day two workshops were offered on verbatim theatre and embodied theatrical movement.

Date: October – December, 2021
Description: Special Event

Led by Brian Sanderson and Luther Wright, this project brought local musicians together to play and sing each other’s songs. It was supposed to take place in five iconic music Halls in the region, but turned into recording sessions, a CD, a film and eventually, when COVID allowed, a live concert in June 2022.

Date: January
Location: Centre Wakefield La Pêche
Description: TW Presents

Presented by the Linden House Theatre Society of Ottawa.

A Gift of Traditions, Old and New

Date: December 19, 2020
Location: Posted on Facebook/Website
Description: Special Event (COVID)

Despite the COVID Grinch stealing Christmas in 2020, our West Quebec Youth were delightfully inspired to cheer us all up!

Under the tutelage of Wakefield resident Lara Guenette (actress and former stage manager with Theatre Wakefield and most recently a high school drama teacher), the Youth and Elves created an amazing Virtual Variety Show that aired on Theatre Wakefield’s Facebook page Saturday, Dec. 19 at 7 pm. The show brought light and joy into our homes near the darkest night of 2020, just before the solstice. The 45-minute program featured:

Stop motion animation skits, a youth choir, holiday baking interviews with our elders, holiday craft making, a puppet show, dance and lots of laughs.

Date: January 24-26 Tour
Locations: Brennan’s Hill Bar and Restaurant, Brennan’s Hill; La FAB sur Mill, Chelsea; Pontiac High School, Shawville
Description: Playreading

Playwright: Vicki Williams
Director: Peter Haworth
Producer: Mara McCallum
Designer: Sebastien Molgat

How Libby Got Married was the product of Theatre Wakefield’s New Works program – From Page to Stage, under the direction of Peter Haworth. It was chosen to tour to three regional venues.

Date: February
Location: Centre Wakefield La Pêche
Description: Festival

Thankfully, the 2020 Festival took place just a couple of weeks before the COVID shut-down. Curated by Melanie Willis.

Date: April to May
Location: Facebook
Description: Special Event (COVID)

Board member Geoff Aucoin organized a series of Facebook challenges so families could create stories through videos according to selected themes. Each one was sillier than the last. Prizes were free pizzas from a local pizza parlour paid for by Theatre Wakefield since restaurants were suffering so much during COVID. These challenges were very popular.

Date: May to August
Location: Posted on Facebook/Website
Description: Special Event (COVID)

During the first few weeks of COVID, Theatre Wakefield teamed up with Dale Kerr who set up a radio station at the Cente Wakefield La Pêche. A variety of actors, led by  Jeffrey Ferguson and Jennifer Currie, created comedy sketches for broadcast.

Date: July 1
Location: Posted on Facebook/Website
Description: Special Event (COVID)

Date: February 2-24
Location: Centre Wakefield La Peche
Description: Festival

Date: March 16
Location: Centre Wakefield La Peche
Description: TW Presents

Date: March to November
Description: Workshops and Playreadings

Date: May 3-4
Location: Vorlage Ski Lodge
Description: Playreadings

Back by popular demand, for our Spring  production we reprised two plays: Jack King; Ace Detective by Keith Davidson, and The Trouble with Ninjas by Caitlin Oleson. Both plays had come through Theatre Wakefield’s New Works Program – From Page to Stage and had been featured at previous TaDa! Performing Arts Festivals.

Date: July 1
Location: Centre Wakefield La Pêche
Description: Special event

Invited to participate in the Canada Day Celebrations in Wakefield, a number of the Wakefield Players performed some improv on the grounds, much to the delight of the mix of ages who were present.

Date: September 13 – 15
Location: Centre Wakefield La Pêche
Description: Festival

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Date: October 10
Location: Centre Wakefield La Pêche
Description: TW Presents

Playwright: Marius von Mayenburg
Director: Peter James Haworth
Performers: Sasha Dominique, Andrew Hosale, Julie Le Gal, David Whiteley

Lette thought he was normal, but when the extent of his ugliness is revealed he turns to a plastic surgeon for help. Then, after the bandages come off, Lette soon learns that there is such a thing as too beautiful.

The Ugly One is a scalpel-sharp comedy on beauty, identity and getting ahead in life. 

Date: October 18-20
Location: Centre Wakefield La Pêche
Description: Festival

Date: November 10
Location: The Blacksheep Inn
Description: TW Presents

Date: November 22, 23, 24, 29 & 30
Location: Centre Wakefield La Pêche
Description: Wakefield Players mainstage production

Playwright: Ron Stolz
Director: Peter Haworth
Producer: Jeffrey Ferguson
Stage Manager: Andrea Rowe
Technical Director: Rink DeLange
Performers: Shelley Harrison, Gabriel Jort-Pelletier, Claude Laroche, Maria-Hélèna Pacelli, David Park, Jim Payette

Maîtres Chez Nous is a story about our history. But it’s also a story about people, and how history and time shaped them. The inspiration to write this play came from the playwright reading an article about two politicians, Lucien Bouchard and Jean Charest, looking back 20 years after the 1995 Quebec referendum, which thrust them unexpectedly into the middle of a national drama. It was an event neither could foresee when they entered public life, but it consumed them and motivated them to assume a vital role in the outcome. This is the story of six Montrealers who lived through those decades of turbulence and how the events profoundly affected their lives.

Maîtres Chez Nous went through the 2017 New Works Project – From Page To Stage, working with Lascelles dramaturge Peter Haworth who critiqued up to three re-writes while providing a structured and supportive environment in which to explore the various artistic dimensions of the play. At the end of the process, it was selected as a full mainstage production.

Date: December 12-13
Location: Centre Wakefield La Pêche
Description: Special Event

Date: February 3 – March 4
Location: Centre Wakefield La Peche
Description: Festival

Date: March 22
Location: The Blacksheep Inn
Description: Special event

Director: Leanne Olson
Director’s Coach: Andrew Rooney
Performers: Jen Currie, Stephen Ferguson, Andrea Rowe, and two others. 

Dispatches Without Borders draws on dozens of Doctors Without Borders volunteer blogs to introduce five distinct characters at the front lines of humanitarian fieldwork: a patient, doctor, nurse, psychologist and logistician. Together, they explore the complexities of their experiences from five different points of view.

Dispatches Without Borders was a fundraiser for Doctors Without Borders and the Wakefield Emergency Fund.

Date: May 12
Location: Centre Wakefield La Peche
Description: Special Event

Date: June 2,10 & 15
Location: Brennan’s Hill, Lac Ste Marie, Shawville
Description: Playreading

Date: September 7-8
Location: Centre Wakefield La Peche
Description: Festival

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Date: October 12-14
Location: Centre Wakefield La Peche
Description: Festival

Four tasty films about our relationship to food, growing it, preparing it and eating it

Date: November 15
Location: Glebe Community Centre
Description: Special event, playreading

Dispatches Without Borders draws on dozens of blogs by Medecins sans frontières (MSF) volunteers to introduce five distinct characters at the front lines of humanitarian fieldwork: a patient, a nurse, a doctor, a strategist, a social worker. Each explores the complexities of the fieldwork from five different points of view.  This was a fundraiser for MSF.

Directed by Leanne Olson
Coach to Director: Andrew Rooney
Performers: Steve Ferguson, Andrea Rowe, Jen Currie and two more.

Date: November 18
Location: The Blacksheep Inn
Description: TW Presents

A tribute show honouring Joni Mitchel, this presentation featured actors and musicians from Bear & Co., an Ottawa theatre company. 

Date: November 23, 24, 25, 30 –  December 1
Location: Centre Wakefield La Péche
Description: Wakefield Players

Two One-Act Plays with the theme: Comedy, Then and Now
Directed by Gabriel Milling
Producer: Lynn Berthiaume
Supervising Producers: Linda Gillies, David Park
Stage Manager (Love Potion): Andrea Rowe
Backstage Manager: Sophie Doucet
Technical Director: Rink de Lange

Performers:

Caught With His Trance Down (1897): Gabriel Milling, Nelson Oser-Small, Jim Potter, Marni Jones, Robert Milling, Maria-Hélèna Pacelli

Love Potion (2015): Roland Stieda, Teresa Bandrowska, Maria-Hélèna Pacell