In 2016, we staged the comedy Stag and Doe, by Mark Crawford, directed by Chantal Elie-Sernoskie. This play, which opened at the Blyth Festival in 2014, featured, in its Stone Fence Theatre production, Danielle Bissonnette, Melissa Lindsay, and Kelley Oliver, as well as returning veterans Joshua McCoy and Stephanie Pinkerton, Chris Hoffman, Phil Hoffman and Camille McLean, with MC Valley Vic, and pre-show music (traditional, Irish and Celtic) by Ish Theilheimer and Jim Beattie.
In fall and winter, it produced a fund-raising tour with a new musical comedy, High Times at the Heart Institute, by Ish Theilheimer. The show was inspired by the playwright’s own experience as a heart patient and the new appreciation he gained for Canada’s health system as a result. The tour raised more the $21,000 for health care in the Ottawa Valley. The show was directed by Chantal Elie-Sernoskie and featured John Haslam, Fran Pinkerton, Peter Brown, Lesley Sneddon and Shirley Hill, with Cathy Lyons, Elaine Neigel, Conrad Boyce and Nigel Epps and musicians Derek Tollhurst and Evan Burgess.
It also staged an evening of French-Canadian tradition music called Kitchen Party! / Party de cuisine! It featured button accordion virtuoso Gaston Nolet along with Monique Jutras, who sings, plays guitar, and does amazing things with the dancing “bonhomme” ; frequent Pembroke fiddle contest finalist Yvon Cuilleriere and keyboard and fiddle trickster and wizard Germain Leduc. The evening was hosted by Ish Theilheimer and by Chantal Elie-Sernoskie, a franco-Ontarian with strong musical roots in her community.
The company also produced a studio-recorded CD called Songs from Here Comes the Train, recorded by Colin Wylie at School House Recordings in Douglas, Ontario.