FALL & WINTER THEATRE LINEUP
Classics, musical romance at Highland Arts Theatre.
The Highland Arts Theatre has only one week left in its summer season, but it has been busy promoting its upcoming fall/winter lineup.
Returning for a fifth season is the HAT’s audience favourite holiday classic, “A Christmas Carol,” scheduled for its yearly run from Dec. 12 to 16.
This is the same production of the show that was going to retire after its third year but audience demand brought it back to the HAT stage.
And just so you know, I have a small role in it, but that has nothing to do with its popularity.
The three mainstage productions that make up the HAT ticket package for the season feature two new shows and the return of a fun, frothy, audience favourite.
The first play of the new season is “Mary’s Wedding” by Ontario-born playwright Stephen Massicotte and directed by Ron Jenkins, who has had numerous successful HAT productions.
On the night before her wedding and on the eve of the First World War, Mary meets and falls in love with Charlie. In a tumultuous world, it seems like their love will never find a safe place to grow.
“Mary’s Wedding” premiered at Alberta Theatre Projects in 2002, and Massicotte’s play has had more than 100 productions in Canada, the U.S., New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
A reviewer for the Ottawa Citizen wrote, “Massicotte’s play about love, separation and regret is an unpretentious winner — lyrical, warm and sweet spirited, a love story that avoids
mushiness, a war story that doesn’t assault us with earnest speeches.”
“Mary’s Wedding” runs from Sept. 20 to 23.
In October, the HAT offers a modern Newfoundland classic.
“West Moon” by Newfoundland writer Al Pittman and directed by Sarah Blanchard, premiered in 1980 and looked at the still controversial government policy of resettling the inhabitants of outports in more centralized communities and abandoning the small coastal towns.
In Pittman’s play, the inhabitants
of an outport cemetery realize that resettlement will mean no relatives living near to tend their graves and remember them.
Pittman was greatly lauded in his home province. He was the first recipient in 1985 of the Newfoundland Arts Council’s Lydia Campbell Award for creative writing, and he won the Writers’ Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador Book Award for poetry in 2001.
Pittman was inducted into the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council Hall of Honour in 1999. He died in August 2001, aged 61.
“West Moon” runs from Oct. 24 to 28.
The third HAT offering of the fall season is a re-mount of the popular musical comedy, “She Loves Me” with book by Joe Masteroff, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick and music by Jerry Bock. It is directed by Wesley J. Colford and musically directed by Barb Stetter.
Two employees of a Budapest perfume shop are at odds face to face at work but find themselves in love when they become unknowing pen pals. The extracurricular activities of their fellow workers also add to the farcical situations and the tuneful score completes the fun.
The plot is sturdy but charming. It’s been a Hungarian play,
a Hollywood movie and a Hollywood musical, before its last incarnation as the Tom Hanks/ Meg Ryan romantic comedy “You’ve Got Mail” in the late 1990s. And it’s been a winner in every version, including this stage production.
“She Loves Me” runs from Nov. 21 to 25.
Start time for all shows is 8 p.m.
Tired of the Marvel Universe? Just had enough of the Justice League? Create your own comic universe.
The Glace Bay branch of the Cape Breton Regional Library is offering a workshop for anyone eight years old and older who want to write and illustrate their own original comics.
The workshop takes place Tuesday from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Glace Bay Library, 121 Union St. Participants need to register ahead time for the workshop either in person at the library or by phone at 902-849-8657. Excelsior!