Starting off the year is our ANNUAL GIRL’S NITE OUT COMEDY NIGHT in celebration of International Women’s Day on March 8^th & 9^th in the Normandy Room at The Collingwood Legion. We have added a ton more fun this year so don’t wait….this show sells out FAST!

MARCH 8th. & 9th.

Gather your girlfriends (and any brave men you know) and get ready for a night of laughter, tons of fun and great cheer with some of Canada’s funniest ladies as Theatre Collingwood celebrates WONDERFUL WOMEN & INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY with GIRLS NITE OUT!

Sam Fleming, aka DJ Efsharp, founded Evolved Entertainment to produce the finest events for Toronto’s diverse crowds through their genuine love of music and entertainment. We are so thrilled to have him and his company in Collingwood now. You are in for a treat! Sam knows how to get the party going!

Jess Bowman is a singer/songwriter/musician who catches everyone’s attention with her unique voice, guitar playing and loop pedal! While making herself into a one man band, Jess is well known for her wide variety of music that everyone can dance, sing and enjoy!

Kat Salvadore founded Kat’s Meow Beautiful Burlesque to empower women through the art of burlesque. Hot off the press!! We will be offering Kat’s classes in the spring through Theatre Collingwood (watch for details). We are excited to feature a fun demonstration of this artform at our Girls Nite Out show this year!

Girls Nite Out is an all-female, all funny troupe of improv and stand-up comedy performers that will have you in stitches with their side-splitting sketches.

Experience for yourself the magical charm of "Cole-Hearted" -- a unique musical biography tracing the life, times and enormous talent of the legendary American songwriter, Cole Porter.

"Cole-Hearted" lovingly explores the steps through Cole's life and career starting with his family roots in Peru, Indiana, through his college years at Yale, to the palazzos of Venice, the stages of Broadway, the silver screens of Hollywood, and beyond.   

I've Got You Under My Skin, Night and Day, True Love, Miss Otis Regrets, Make It Another Old Fashioned, Where Is the Life that Late I Led?, All Of You, and over two dozen more of Cole Porter's greatest works are brought to life by Dean Hollin, who will be accompanied by the incomparable Mr. Steve Thomas on piano.  

THE WRITINGS OF SHIRLEY JACKSON 

Performed by Melody Johnson

Featuring Allan Cole on piano

Letters,

Leftovers and the Lottery - The Writing of Shirley Jackson is a thoughtfully curated portrait of one of the all-time finest writers. In this 85 minute show, composer Allen Cole and actor Melody Johnson, combine reading, performance, and live piano to Jackson’s light and dark writings.

Following her celebrated performance at the 2022 Porchside Festival, Master of Storytelling, Melody Johnson, returns to Collingwood to weave another tale centered around Master of Literary Horror, Shirley Jackson. Everyone can and will delight in, and relate to, this engaging account of Shirley’s work, centered around family and community.

Composer Allen Cole and actor Melody Johnson combine reading, performance, and live piano playing to Jackson’s published letters, her lesser known psychologically charged stories, and a haunting retelling of Jackson’s most well-known short story The Lottery.

Shirley Jackson’s dark, psychological stories rocketed her into the public eye when her short story The Lottery was published in 1948 by the New Yorker. Initially highly controversial, it was later recognized as a gothic classic and has been included in more anthologies, freaking out more high school students than perhaps any short story ever written. Her novels The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle are also considered two of the greatest psychological thrillers of the 20th century, with recent film adaptations. Less remembered today are the “domestic comedy” stories that Jackson wrote in the 1950s. Based on her trials and tribulations as a 1950’s housewife, and lampooning the antics of her husband and four children, they were wildly popular, and first published in magazines like Good Housekeeping, Collier’s, and Reader’s Digest. They are the precursors of a genre now referred to as the “MomBlog”. The fact that Jackson could write so authentically in these two hugely different genres has long bewildered readers and critics alike. Perhaps it’s a true reflection of a dichotomy that challenged many women of that time; a great love of family life on one side, coupled with a deep desire to break free of its limitations.

Allen Cole, (Composer/Creator) | Originally from Nova Scotia, Allen Cole has worked variously as composer, musical director, and writer for The Stratford Festival, Shaw Festival, the National Arts Centre and many other theatres across the country. He’s won numerous awards, including four Dora Mavor Moore awards, six Robert Merritt awards, and a Best Film Score Award from The Atlantic Film Festival.

Melody A. Johnson, (Actor/Creator) | An accomplished creator, Melody has enjoyed a career of moving between the worlds of comedy and drama. Since 2010 Melody has toured and produced the self-penned Miss Caledonia throughout Canada, (premiering at the prestigious Tarragon Theatre in Toronto, and National Arts Centre in Ottawa), and internationally to the United Kingdom. The play garnered two Toronto Dora nominations (Outstanding New Play, Outstanding Performance 2013.) Theatre Collingwood audiences also enjoyed it, as well as her Porchside Festival presentation of Person of Interest this past summer.

JUNE 6-10, Special Location in Collingwood TBA 

Starring Leisa Way and The Wayward Wind Band

Conceived and Created by Leisa Way

COME CELEBRATE THE INCREDIBLE MUSIC of Canadian legend, Gordon Lightfoot, as we all celebrate his 85 years on the planet! Sing along to Sundown, For Loving Me, Early Morning Rain, Canadian Railroad Trilogy, Did She Mention My Name, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Black Day in July, If You Could Read My Mind, Carefree Highway, Rainy Day People, Song For a Winter's Night, Ribbon of Darkness, Alberta Bound, I'm Not Sayin', Bitter Green, Cotton Jenny, Pussy Willows Cat-Tails and more!

A Theatre Collingwood favourite, Leisa Way brings her boundless energy and impressive singing voice back to Collingwood this summer! Accompanied by the astounding musicians and vocalists of the Wayward Wind band, Leisa will take us on a musical journey filled with special stories, facts and anecdotes about Canada’s most celebrated songwriter and folk-rock legend!

--- The Wellington Advertiser

THE KNITTING PILGRIM                                               Co-written by Kirk Dunn and Claire Ross Dunn,

 “This show was transformative. When something you looked at before you came in, you can see the exact same thing after you leave and it looks different to you, and you think differently about it, and you feel differently about it … That’s the mark of really, really, really exceptional theatre. When people ask me how this play was, I say I really cannot describe it to you: it is beyond description. I would give this 6 stars, if I could, out of 5.”

Based on her bestselling memoir, Confessions of a Fairy’s Daughter tells the story of Alison’s family and her experiences growing up with her amazing father. Woven through music and imagery, and incredibly creative acting, this comic monologue moves from Alison’s carefree childhood to the moment she learned, at age twelve, that her family was a bit more complex than she had thought.

Confessions of a Fairy’s Daughter has been performed more than 150 times and has won top awards in virtually every festival in which it has appeared, including four Fringe Festival Best of Fest awards, the CBC’s Outstanding Solo Show award, and Best Dramatic Script at NYC's United Solo, the largest festival of solo theatre in the world.

 “★★★★★ This show is a five-star work of heart.”

— CVV MAGAZINE