Try Connecting Through Theatre During The Scugog Arts small Town
Big Multi Arts Festival!

Tuesday, May 5th, 7pm

An Acting Class, Pot Luck Lunch, a Sneak Peek at the 2026 Summer Season
… and small Town Big First Time Participants attend for FREE!

10:30 am – Noon
Scene Study with Michael Serres & Annette Stokes-Harris
Port Perry Church of the Ascension, 266 North St., Port Perry
This is the perfect introduction to the world of the actor! The class is informal, and don’t require any previous acting experience. Come this month to try – come back as often as
you like. Meet some new people, learn something new, and have a laugh or two!

Noon to 1 pm
Let’s Do Lunch
Port Perry Church of the Ascension, 266 North St., Port Perry
Take both the Scene Study class AND the First Read Club session and join our monthly potluck lunch. Connect in a whole new way by sharing food, traditions, customs and views over a delicious meal. New? Bring your favourite dish to share. Friends already? Bring something new and fun to share. Note: your own brown bag lunch is always welcome as well!

1 – 3 pm
First Read Club with Carey Nicholson
Rotary Room, Scugog Memorial Public Library, 231 Water St., Port Perry
Read plays, dig into text and gain insight into live theatre creative and production processes. Our First Read Club invites you to the production table with Theatre on the Ridge artistic director, Carey Nicholson to discover a new play read aloud followed by creative discussion and conversation. Be a reader or be a listener – everyone is
welcome!

Our May First Read Club is a special sneak peek at the scripts behind the productions of the 2026 summer season! You won’t want to miss it!

First time participants may attend free of charge only on Tuesday, May 5th! But pre-registration is recommended for all activities.

Contact us at
programs@theatreontheridge.ca
to sign up for any or all of the above!

For full details on all our regularly scheduled
Connecting Through Theatre activities, See Here

A Pint and A Preview
Theatre on the Ridge Summer 2026 Season Launch Party

Monday, May 25th, 6 – 9pm
Old Flame Brewery
135 Perry St, Port Perry

It’s an evening of fun at our summer season launch trivia night fundraising event!

We’ve got great stories to tell this summer and it all starts on Monday, May 25 th at Old Flame Brewery!

Join us as we get summer 2026 off to an exciting start at our A Pint and A Preview Season Launch Party, from 6 – 9 pm.

Your $30 ticket includes a complimentary beverage and a great night of sneak previews of the season’s upcoming productions, Romeo and Juliet, Sketches of Leacock and
Piggyland.

The evening’s entertainment includes three rounds of trivia quiz entertainment based on the season’s line up, socializing with summer company members, a complimentary beverage and more!

The doors open at 6 pm. Come for the fun, come with a friend and come to support Theatre on the Ridge!

Our 2026 season – The Stories We Tell – is one of our most ambitious yet and all proceeds from the event ticket sales and activities will make sure that it is a season to remember!

Romeo and Juliet

Written by William Shakespeare
Adapted by Landon Doak and Iain Moggach
Directed by Iain Moggach 
Original Music by Landon Doak

June 17th – July 5th, 2026

In this thrilling and accessible adaptation of Romeo & Juliet, multi–Dora Award–winning composer Landon Doak teams up with Bluebirds director Iain Moggach to bring Shakespeare’s most famous love story to life in a way you have never seen before.

With live music woven throughout and a focus on the heart of the story (two young people caught between loyalty and love) this production promises an intimate, emotional night at the theatre that’s perfect for long-time fans and first-time Shakespeare-goers alike.

Romeo & Juliet is a remount and update of a production originally staged at Old Flame Brewery in Port Perry 10 years ago and is now being adapted specifically for the Theatre on the Ridge tent.

In addition to the public performances, a limited number of school packages are also available in partnership with Scugog Shores Museum.

The Creatives
Iain Moggach is the director of last summer’s Bluebirds and artistic director of Burro’d Theatre. This is Iain’s second season with Theatre on the Ridge.

Landon Doak is a theatre artist and Dora Award winning composer, originally from Port Perry and currently the artistic associate with Bad Hats Theatre.

Behind the Scenes
Suitable for ages 12 +

Content warning: stage violence and suicide

Running Time: 90 minutes plus an Intermission

Romeo & Juliet is made possible with support from the Kellett Patrick Family Foundation

The Incredible Adventure of
Mary Jane Mosquito

Written by Tomson Highway
Directed by TBC

July 9th – 25th, 2026

Tomson Highway’s musical cabaret, The Incredible Adventures of Mary Jane Mosquito, couldn’t be more vividly presented unless you were sitting in the middle seat of the front row watching the Cree playwright, performer, musician and poet himself.

The story of a wingless little mosquito from Manitoba has all the whimsy and wise humour any audience could ask for. The ageless theme of a misfit, who finds her voice through song and who learns to make friends by communicating directly with her audience, is a timely treat for anyone who has felt like an outsider, dealt with bullying, moved to a new place, or was different from the rest of the pack.

The Creatives
Tomson Highway OC is one of Canada’s most prominent and influential Indigenous writers.

He is a playwright, novelist, children’s author and musician, best known for his plays The Rez Sisters and
Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, both of which won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play and the Floyd S. Chalmers Award.

Suitable for ages 4+

Running time: Approximately 60 minutes. No intermission

Individual Tickets:
$15 for ages 15 to 18 years
$10 for ages up to 14 years

Mosquito Pack Family Bundle: $65 for up to 6 persons*

Sketches of Leacock

Adapted by Andy Massingham from the writings of
Stephen Leacock
Directed by Andy Massingham

August 5th – 23rd, 2026

The brilliant and satiric writing of Canada’s much beloved author and essayist Stephen Leacock (1869-1944) is the inspiration of this world premiere. In Sketches of Stephen Leacock, Andy Massingham brings together the myriads of eccentric characters Leacock became world-famous for.

Often called “Canada’s Mark Twain,” and lauded by
Groucho Marx as, “The funniest writer I have ever read”, Leacock wrote of thwarted love, bank managers, angry customers, nosy neighbours, love-struck kids (and NOT kids). They are all here for the fun and Leacock skewers them all wit his razor-sharp wit.

You will find yourself recognizing the same pitfalls and potholes which bedevil us all, as you stroll with us through Leacock’s fabled and imaginary town of Mariposa in an evening of laughter, music and celebration of one of Canada’s literary giants.

The Creatives
Andy Massingham is a Toronto-based Dora Mavor Moore and Prix Rideau Award-winning actor, director, teacher and playwright.

Andy has worked across Canada as an actor at such venues as the Stratford Festival, National Arts Centre, Theatre New Brunswick, the Banff Centre, Tarragon, Soulpepper,
and Young Peoples Theatre, among many others.

He is also a faculty member of the Toronto Film
School. This is Andy’s fifth season with Theatre on the Ridge.

Behind The Scenes
Suitable for ages 8+

Running time: approx. 90 minutes + intermission

Piggyland

A new play by Graeme Powell
Directed by Carey Nicholson

September 9th – 20th, 2026

Piggyland is an exciting new drama by Graeme Powell. Inspired by true events that took place in
Sunderland, Ontario in the early 1960s, Piggyland is a tale of greed, deception and the pursuit of dreams.

Concocted by career conman John Laun, the Piggyland farm raised over a million dollars from investors eager to double, or even triple their investment. Instead, they lost it all.

The mysterious John Laun vanished without a trace…and so did all the money. Remember, If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is…

The Creatives
Graeme is a playwright and actor who is familiar to audiences throughout Durham Region from his many roles with Theatre on the Ridge, Borelians Community Theatre, and Oshawa Little Theatre, to name a few.

He is a member of the Playwright’s Guild of Canada, and his first play, Renovations, was awarded Best New Canadian Play at the Act-Co Festival in 2015. Other plays include: All
Together Now, Palmer Park, A Third of Richard, and a series of short plays called Pine Grove Plots. He lives in Sunderland with his family.

Carey Nicholson is a co-founder and current artistic director of Theatre on the Ridge and an accomplished director and theatre designer.

Originally trained in classical and contemporary dance, she has been on faculty with George Brown College and the Dance Arts Institute (formerly the School of the Toronto Dance Theatre) and is an independent arts educator.

Behind the Scenes
Suitable for ages 12 +

Running time: 90 minutes. No intermission