Pride and Prejudice

A spirited and playful story of love and life in the English countryside.

With five eligible daughters, Mrs. Bennet is frantically searching for suitable husbands. But finding a husband for the lively and quick-witted Elizabeth may be challenging when she rejects the advances of dark and mysterious Mr. D’Arcy.

Tickets available online or at the Grand Theatre box office.

Lady Windermere’s Fan

Lady Windermere’s Fan was Oscar Wilde’s first produced play, and it was an instant success on the English stage. Chronicling a series of misunderstandings and deceptions in the high society world of Victorian London, critics and audiences alike were charmed by Wilde’s trademark wit and intelligence.

Lady Windermere’s Fan continues to entertain audiences all over the world, and the London, Ontario production will be no exception. Join Theatre Soup for an entertaining evening of intrigue, wit, satire, and fun! Come out on March 10th, for our opening night gala, featuring catering by The Black Shire Pub, live entertainment, and more!

Tickets: $20 ($15 for groups of 10 or more), available online or at the Grand Theatre box office (519-672-8800).
Special half-price matinee on March 11.

Medea

Euripides’ great drama of romantic obsession, the most searing of Greek tragedies, tells the tale of the princess Medea. For the love of Jason, she has betrayed her father and her people, murdered her own brother and gone into exile. Now, dismissed by the man for whom she has given her life, she plans a terrible revenge. Medea is a fast paced and uncompromising show promising to engage and entertain.

Seating is extremely limited, seating only 50 per performance.

Tickets: $20, available at the door or in advance at The ARTS Project box office 519-642-2767.
Pay-what-you-can preview March 11.

The Silent City

Picture a musical without the jazz hands. Picture a rock band without the hangover. Now throw in an eclectic mix of catchy songs. The result is Stagehands, a band that combines theatre and pop-rock to create a whole new kind of show. This is Broadway-Rock!

The Silent City tells the story of Stan, a lonely and frustrated songwriter who travels to Laconia, The Land of Entertainment, in search of fame. What Stan finds upon his arrival is a city whose celebrity citizens are forced to wear masks by the evil, all-powerful, yet charming Mayor. By the end of his adventure in Laconia, Stan must face an impossible choice: fighting the Mayor and losing his chance at fame, or wearing the mask and losing himself. The Silent City races through a wide range of musical genres toward a musical finale that will decide Stan’s and Laconia’s fates forever.

Disney’s Sleeping Beauty for Kids

It’s Princess Aurora’s 16th birthday, and Flora, Fauna and Merriweather must use their fairy magic to save her from the spell of evil sorceress, Maleficent! Based on the famous Disney version of one of everyone’s favourite Princess fairy tales, you’ll watch a large cast playing everyone from King Stefan and Queen Stefanie’s Loyal Subjects to Maleficent’s slimy, evil goons, and you’ll delight in hearing songs from the film, including Once Upon A Dream, as well as sparkling new fun songs like Maleficent andA Little Magic Now. Disney’s Sleeping Beauty for Kids will give a whole new generation of families the “Royal Treatment”!

Tickets: $15 adults, $10 students, available online or at the Grand Theatre box office.

Bridge to Terabithia

This powerful adaptation of the award-winning novel is filled with humour, lyrical music, warmth and emotional intensity. Jesse, isolated from his uncreative Virginia culture and family, is a young artist who dreams of becoming someone special. Leslie, an outsider from the city, opens a world of imagination, art and literature for him. As their friendship grows, they create Terabithia, a fantasy kingdom where they are safe from those who don’t understand them. When tragedy strikes, Jesse has gained enough strength in Terabithia to go forward on his own and share his magic dreams with the world.

Tickets: $15 adults, $10 students, available online or at the Grand Theatre box office.

Nine

Nine centres on the mid-life crisis of Guido, a man feeling like he is being trapped emotionally at the age of nine and physically at the age of 40 AND the many, many women in his life, 15 at last count! You’ll discover emotional expression as fierce as any have been set to music. The score is full of blood-boiling variety and emotion-rousing colour and our staging of the show and its music will make it leap from the stage into the hearts of the audience.

With lyrics both funny and poignant - every song contributes to the story, and each character is complete, from start to finish. Some songs speak to heartbreak and love, while others are giddy reminders of life as a teenager and young adult.

Tickets: $25, available at the Palace box office.

Saving Lonesome George

Meet Sweet Solomon Bunch, a pirate with a heart of gold who loves animals. When his best friend, a rare turtle, is kidnapped, he gathers a timid boy, his pet squirrel, a hacky-sack expert and the absent-minded Hyacinth Macaw to help him. The audience participates in their adventure to save the turtle from extinction.

Inspired by Lonesome George, a real Galapagos turtle that is the last of its kind, this empowering play inspires children to act to help the environment and learn about building friendships, kindness and teamwork.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Shakespeare’s #1 Comedy!

In Shakespeare’s most popular play, hands down, Theseus is about to marry Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, when Egeus complains to him that his daughter Hermia refuses to marry Demetrius, (his choice for her), since she loves Lysander! Holy controlling parent, Robin Goodfellow!! So four teens escape to the forest, and in an hallucinogenic fairyland, all kinds of romantic confusions erupt! Enemies and Frenemies collide! Meanwhile, a bunch of working men, the Rude Mechanicals, led by Bottom the Weaver, are valiantly trying to write and rehearse a play to present at the Theseus/Hippolyta wedding festivities. It is crazy! it is romantic! It is truly, genuinely funny! You have to be there!

Tickets: $15 adults, $10 students. Available online or at the Grand Theatre box office, 519-672-8800.

The Barnyard Man

Who knows what goes “oink oink” here and “baa baa” there? The Barnyard Man do! Mu-ha-ha-h… *ahem* Moo-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaa!

That’s right, friends, it’s time for another episode of The Barnyard Man. Wealthy Confederate layabout Cranberry Leghorn and his faithful companion Rhoda “Island Red” McDonnell face their most exciting adventure ever in So Fowl and Fair a Day. Then, will Cranberry’s sky fall when Red’s high school crush comes to town? Find out in When Chic Henderson Crossed Rhoda. It’s a night that will have you running around like your head’s been cut off… with laughter!

Tickets: $3.99 per dozen, available in your grocer’s dairy case.

with apologies and props to Jayson “Old” McDonald

Macbeth

The Selfish Giant

You’ll thrill to Oscar Wilde’s magical story set to enchanting music, and designed for a large cast of young people. The strong theme about the need for generosity and the need to open your heart to the fresh innocence of children will delight you as you meet the Selfish Giant who builds a high wall around his beautiful garden to keep children from playing in it. When the Giant realizes that spring is not going to come, and that winter is going to remain, he opens his eyes and ears to music and youthful motion, and hopes to save his world.

Tickets: $15 adults, $10 students. Available online or at the Grand Theatre box office, 519-672-8800.

Spring Mystery Madness

The Spriet Family Theatre is HAUNTED!! Or is it?? The Nooby-Doo Gang (Get it??) is on the scene to investigate what is going on. Will they solve the mystery of the mean spirits before their arch-rival, the Nooby-Don’t Gang? OR…is there more to these strange goings-on than meets the eye?? Everyone will love this world premiere of this clever new play written especially for Original Kids, and set right here–in our own theatre! You’ve just got to be here! Spookiness and scary fun aren’t just for Halloween at Original Kids in Spring 2010!

Tickets: $15 adults, $10 students, available online or at the Grand Theatre box office.

London One Act Festival 2010

The London One Act Festival is a week-long competition of short plays of any genre running 40 minutes or less. Submissions will be accepted until February 1; see the LOAF website for details.

Legends

Sequel to the hit musical Twist and Shout: The British Invasion.

The legends of rock and roll are back. From Chuck Berry and the Everly Brothers to Stevie Wonder, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Sonny and Cher, memorable hits of the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s are revisited. This high-energy musical showcase will have you roaring with laughter and dancing in your seat.

Rabbit Hole

Becca and Howie Corbett have everything a family could want, until a life-shattering accident turns their world upside down, charting their bittersweet search for comfort in the darkest of places and for a path that will lead them back into the light of day.

The Big Comedy Go-To 2010

Jerry’s Girls

Jerry Herman created a string of legendary Broadway smash hits, and some of the greatest female diva starring roles of all time! Great Broadway stars lined up to be in a Jerry Herman show, and among the ones he wrote for are Carol Channing, Bernadette Peters and Angela Lansbury. Jerry’s Girls wowed Broadway as a tribute to those kinds of legendary stars and to Jerry Herman, the brilliant Broadway artist who wrote their roles and their music. You’ll thrill to all the greatest hits from musicals like Hello, Dolly!, Mame, Milk and Honey, Mack and Mabel, and La Cage Aux Folles, as you watch a new generation of OK Divas celebrating the very best in Golden Age Show Biz!

Tickets: $15 adults, $10 students, available online or at the Grand Theatre box office.

Perfect Wedding

Anne of Green Gables

The Great Canadian Musical

We’re bringing Anne back by popular demand, in the world renowned greatest Canadian musical of all—Anne of Green Gables! It has played at the Charlottetown Festival ever since it began, travelled to London England, Broadway, and around the planet, also selling out in advance for OK’s production in 2001. With its classic story of the young orphan girl who rises to the top through her pluck and personality, the Cuthberts who give her a home in which to grow, the colourful characters that people Prince Edward Island, the tuneful music and the combination of sentiment and comedy, you’ll feel your spirits lifting and your emotions stirring as you live the story that generations have loved!

Tickets: $15 adults, $10 students, available online or at the Grand Theatre box office.

Cabaret

I Is Another

I Is Another is the story of 19th century visionary French poet Arthur Rimbaud who abandoned poetry at age 19 to become a gunrunner and slaver in Africa. Two years in the making, this play marks Jason Rip’s most sweeping and ambitious project yet.

30 Reasons Not To Be In A Play

You will have SO much fun watching our OKid actors, all of whom love acting their brains out, staging this hilarious play, which, in a series of 25 comic examples, proves that acting in dramas can be a hazardous, even life-threatening, thing, and must be avoided at all costs! Disastrous stage kisses, contagious pinkeye, the inciting of World War lll — those are just 3 of the minor horrors, hardships and calamities that befall those who feel the call of the stage. Come and laugh again and again, as you watch our actors prove that they are in BIG TROUBLE doing what you’re watching them do! And look out for falling masonry! LOL!

Tickets: $15 adults, $10 students, available online or at the Grand Theatre box office.

Strangers on a Train

A classic thriller full of mystery and suspense, this crime story with a difference portrays a deadly game of cat and mouse.

Bugsy Malone Jr.

You’ll thrill to the rat-a-tat-tat action, brilliant Roaring ’20s songs and zany comedy of Bugsy Malone, the stage adaptation of the renowned kids’ gangster film. Paul Williams, composer of The Muppet Movie, has outdone himself with this swinging show, and the script by Alan Parker is filled with fascinating gangsters and gangster’s gals and unforgettable slapstick comedy routines. Come to our Speakeasy, and tell ‘em Joe sent ya! Check your machine gun at the door! The music is ready to start! We’ll count both our actors and our audiences equally lucky to be a part of the great — Bugsy Malone!

Tickets: $15 adults, $10 students, available online or at the Grand Theatre box office.

Theatre Ontario Festival 2010

London Community Players, Western Ontario Drama League and Theatre Ontario are pleased to be co-hosting Theatre Ontario Festival 2010 at the Palace Theatre in London, Ontario.

Four of the Ontario regions — ACT-CO (Association of Community Theatres — Central Ontario), EODL (Eastern Ontario Drama League), QUONTA (Northern Ontario Drama Region) and WODL (Western Ontario Drama League) will each send their winning production to this Festival — four plays in four days. A reception at the Aeolian Hall will kick off this week of theatre. There will be a public adjudication by our adjudicators, Theresa Sears and David Switzer, after each evening’s performance, followed by an “Encore” reception. The following morning a detailed adjudication will be held, open to all, and several workshops are planned. The five day event will close with an Awards Brunch on Sunday, when awards will be presented and one of the productions declared “Best Production”.

Wonderful Town

Wonderful Town is one of the brightest, most high-spirited musicals ever written, bubbling with youthful joy and comedy. We go back to hip Greenwich Village, NYC, in 1935, where the Sherwood sisters, Ruth and Eileen, from small town Ohio, arrive to seek adventure, romance and excitement in the Big Apple—that Wonderful Town. Finding bizarre living quarters in the artsy, bohemian Village, they get more adventure than they bargained for, and meet a weird and wonderful assortment of the local denizens. Ruth is an aspiring writer, an intellectual, and has man trouble (finding an interested one, that is!), while Eileen, a beautiful young actress-dancer, has men falling at her feet! Audiences will love this show, filled with sunshine, comedy, dance, and the brilliant songs written by the master, Leonard Bernstein. Here’s QUALITY in every theatrical way!

Tickets: $15 adults, $10 students, available online or at the Grand Theatre box office.

Beauty and the Beast

Tale as old as time, true as it can be. Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, the smash hit Broadway musical, is coming to London! Based on the Academy Award-winning animated feature film, this eye-popping spectacle has won the hearts of over 35 million people worldwide. This classic musical love story is filled with unforgettable characters, lavish sets and costumes, and dazzling production numbers including Be Our Guest and the beloved titled song. Experience the romance and enchantment of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast at The RBC Theatre at the John Labatt Centre!

Tickets: $80, $72.50, $65, available at the John Labatt Centre box office, 1-866-455-2849.

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

Monster

London Fringe Festival 2010

An Adult Evening with Shel Silverstein

Emma

Enigmatic Lucidity

A man keeps waking up from a horrible dream only to discover that he’s still dreaming. Or is he?

Kicked

Long Time Passing

Spilt Milk 2

Saucy Jack and the Space Vixens

Saucy Jack and the Space Vixens is an interactive, high-energy musical set in a futuristic cabaret bar. Since its creation in 1995 at the Edinburgh Festival, it has been performed to ecstatic audiences in all manner of venues from West End theatres to Victorian railway arches; tiny back-street bars to giant big-tops. Wherever it has played, it has consistently delighted people with its explosive energy and its unique relationship with the audience.

Project G Force: Remastered

The Last Resort

“The funniest, best-written Canadian musical comedy I have ever seen”. –Kitchener Waterloo Record. An off-beat comedy that pokes fun at everything — including itself.

Betrayal

Geppetto & Son

The When You Wish Upon a Star Musical!

The classic tale of an aging toymaker and his puppet, Pinocchio, takes on new meaning in this new musical, with songs by Stephen Schwartz of Wicked fame, and based on the touching Disney film! Join the Blue Fairy, Stromboli, and a lively cast of characters, as Geppetto journeys beyond the toyshop to discover what makes the “perfect child”. This lovely family musical, a magical mix of heart-warming fairytale and action-packed adventure, is a perfect fit for family audiences. Everyone will love following Pinocchio’s journey from awkward puppet to real live boy, and will be charmed by Geppetto’s transformation from tyrannical creator to real live father.

Tickets: pay-what-you-can.

The Real Inspector Hound

The Three Musketeers

Yael’s Ushpizin

Rope

I’ll Be Back Before Midnight

Channel Surfing’s Double Play 2010

Now in its fourth year, Channel Surfing presents two new one act plays including Souled Out by Matt Loop.

Souled Out

Marat/Sade

The persecution and assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as performed by the inmates of the asylum of Charenton under the direction of the Marquis de Sade.

The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife

Picnic

Enchanted April

The Solid Gold Cadillac