Last summer, they had passionate pizzamakers, political poets, post-apocalyptic pilgrims, and petulant pipers.
This year, The Cape Breton Stage Company has languishing lovers, violent vaudevillians, baffled baristas, and troubled tabloid-teers (and those adjectives may be more alliterative than accurate),
In other words, Cape Stage is back for their Summer Night Theatre Festival three nights a week for four weeks beginning Thursday, August 4, at St. Patrick’s Church Museum on Sydney’s Esplanade.
First up at bat on Thursday evening is The Nine Trials of Love, written, performed, and directed by Kyle Capstick, Catherine Gale, Jonathan Lewis, and Anna Spencer. Capstick says the play is “a full length comedy about a love triangle between three friends”.
The Friday evening production is The Wakowski Brothers–written by Wesley Colford and directed by Ken Chisholm–about a pair of Polish brothers trying to find love and fame in the hard scrabble world of vaudeville in the 1920’s. Colford, who wrote last year’s audience favourite Pizza Passion, also wrote several clever, catchy tunes for the show. This show stars Capstick, Gale, and singer/songwriter Alicia Penney (who also did the musical arrangements).
The Saturday evening program has two short plays. Deserving Treats, a one woman show by Natasha MacLellan (from the Margaree Valley now based in Halifax) directed by Wayne MacKay, stars Catharine Gale as a young woman in an upscale coffee shop who has eyes for a certain young man. When he has eyes for another young woman, Gale’s character confronts her own doubts.
Sharing the Saturday evening bill is The Truth Factory, featuring Capstick and Lewis and written and directed by Scott Sharplin, who directed the recent Television Watching Artist performed in the window of the Finishing Touch Design Centre on Sydney’s Charlotte Street.
In this play, two young writers for a tabloid begin concocting wild, twisted “news” stories, only to have them seemingly come true.
Doors open at 7:30 pm on the night of the show with performances starting at 8 pm. Admission $10 each night and tickets are purchased at the door. Weekend passes are available for admission for all three shows for $25. For more information, visit the Cape Stage website.
