In April, Stone Fence Theatre hits the road with a five-community tour of its 2024 hit, Miss Pringle’s Mini-Skirt, by Eganville Leader columnist Johanna Zomers. With music that goes between Beatles-style and old country, it tells the story of a young teacher who comes from the city in 1965 to teach in a one-room schoolhouse. She and the whole community are in for culture shock in this heart-warming story!
The show will be performed April 27 in Rankin, May 4 in Deep River, May 11 in Arnprior, May 25 in Maynooth and June 1 in Almonte.
Miss Pringle’s Mini-Skirt, directed by Shirley Hill and Sarah Wright, features eight children and youth who came together last year as a cohesive and joyful team plus five experienced adult stars – Tabitha Green, Will March, Ambrose Mullin, Ryan Webster and Sarah Wright. A red-hot band made up of Peter Frolander, Will March, Peter Sattelberger, Ish Theilheimer, and Clint Degarie back up the performers on 17 new original songs in contrasting styles that represent the cultural clash of the day – Beatles-style pop music vs. Mac Beattie-style traditional country music.
Written by Johanna Zomers with Ish Theilheimer and Kathy Eisner, the two-act play casts a fond look back at the final days of rural schoolhouses as the Ottawa Valley discovered the Beatles, the Cold War and Hockey Night in Canada.
Inspired by Ms. Zomers’ nostalgic weekly columns in The Eganville Leader, the musical comedy sees a young, inexperienced first-time teacher “from away” learning to cope with her first teaching job in a schoolhouse on the Opeongo Line, the historic settlement road that winds through the hills of Renfrew County. From threshing to chicken killing, from chimney fires to putting on the Christmas concert, Miss Pringle and her students get an education in rural life, love, family and friendship.
