Will Gillespie and The Old-Time String-Band
From L-R : Troy Williams on mandolin, Jonathan Sloan on upright bass and Adam Till on banjo. In front is playwright, composer, narrator singer-songwriter Will Gillespie on guitar wearing the genuine antique hard hat worn underground in the gold mines of Northern Ontario.
Port Perry, ON –
On September 19 & 20th: MINE! True Stories and Legends of the Porcupine Gold Rush comes to Theatre on the Ridge, under the performance tent on the grounds of the Scugog Shores Museum, as part of Ontario Culture Days with an evening of live music, theatrical storytelling and fascinating, nearly-lost Canadian history!
This performance features an incredibly talented live onstage pit band of Durham Region acoustic musicians backing up Singer-Songwriter and playwright Will Gillespie as he shares harrowing, real-life tales of adventure and perseverance, celebrating the unsung heroes behind the legends of the 1909 Porcupine Gold Rush. The ensemble includes Adam Till on banjo, Troy Williams on mandolin and Jonathan Sloan on upright bass, playing new, original songs written in Old-Time styles of the period.
Will Gillespie grew up in the small gold-mining town of South Porcupine, Northern Ontario, the site of a gold rush that rivaled and in some ways exceeded the Klondike, but it happened right here in Ontario! Through these songs and stories Will Gillespie & the Old-Time Stringband take the audience on a musical journey back in time and bring this lost world of prospectors, pioneers, bootlegger-bandits, mushers and moonshiners to life! Durham region’s own visual artist Susan Robinson has created a series of Northern Ontario landscape paintings that will be projected along with images of historical photos of the real people and places that Will is singing about, provided by the Timmins Museum in this fun and charming immersive multi-media storytelling Musical experience.
MINE! True Stories and Legends of the Porcupine Gold Rush is a PWYM (Pay What You May) event, with a suggested minimum of $15 – $20. Event details are available here.
The show logo and album cover for “MINE! True Stories and Legends of the Porcupine Gold Rush” with 12 individual song/chapter logos representing each of the stories.
Designed by Will Gillespie and illustrated by graphic designer Jason Diesbourg.
