ONstage Tonight At Festival: The Curtain Club

The final show at Theatre Ontario Festival always travels from the region that hosted the previous year’s Festival.  In 2012, the final show at Festival isn’t just from last year’s host region—it’s last year’s host theatre as The Curtain Club from Richmond Hill takes the stage, representing the Association of Community Theatres of Central Ontario (ACT-CO).

The Curtain Club was founded in 1954; Cicely Thomson, one of the theatre’s co-founders was also a founding member of Theatre Ontario.  They moved into their current building in 1972, the home for last year’s adjudications, workshops, and parties.  The Curtain Club traveled as ACT-CO’s representative to Theatre Ontario Festival for four consecutive years from 2003 to 2006, winning the Elsie Award for Outstanding Festival Production in 2004 at our last Festival in Sault Ste. Marie (for the original play Staff Room, later chosen as one of the scripts in the Grassroots anthology) and then again in 2005 in Belleville (for Marvin’s Room.)

The Curtain Club’s production of Colleen Murphy’s The December Man / L’homme de décembre was the first community theatre production of this Governor General’s Literary Award winner (published by our neighbours at Playwrights Canada Press).  In the aftermath of the 1989 Montreal Massacre, Benoît and Kathleen do everything they can to help their beloved son cope with his guilt and rage, but Jean’s young life becomes unglued.  This searing drama on courage, heroism and despair explores the long private shadow that public violence casts.

The Curtain Club won three awards in the Drama Category at the 2011-2012 ACT-CO Festival for this production: Best Production, Best Performance by a Male in a Leading Role (Rob Goodale) and Best Performance by a Female in a Leading Role (Lise Boily).

Read more about Theatre Ontario Festival 2012 on the Theatre Ontario website