The company produced a new musical, Miss Pringle’s Mini-Skirt, by Johanna Zomers, with Ish Theilheimer and Kathy Eisner, directed by Shirley Hill and Sarah Wright. The musical is based on Johanna’s experiences growing up on a pioneer farm and attending one-room schools in the 1960s. The show initially featured 11 children and youth who came together as a cohesive and joyful team, plus five experienced adult stars – Ambrose Mullin, Ryan Webster, Tabitha Green. Will March and Sarah Wright. A red-hot band made up of Peter Frolander, Will March, Peter Sattelberger, Ish Theilheimer and Colin Wylie backed up the performers on 17 brand new original songs.
In 2023 Stone Fence Theatre toured the Valley with Tom Thomson and the Colours of Canada and raised about $10,000 for local hospitals.
It launched Conspiracy Conniptions, a zany comedy set in a doughnut shop and sung in gospel music style.
It’s about how the arrival in the small town of Cobtown, Ontario of unruly protestors causes a young man and a young woman and everyone around them to re-examine their lives and beliefs. Everything’s on the table at the doughnut shop. The play asks serious questions about how to change minds in today’s fragmented, polarized climate, and it suggests possibilities.
The show’s book and music, most of it in gospel style, were written by Ish Theilheimer, and it was directed and choreographed by Chantal Elie. Choir director is keyboard artist Schroeder Nordholt.
A lot of the action takes place in Cobtown Donut Heaven. There, Abigail (Amber Dagenais, of Eganville), a fitness nut whose Mom owns the shop, tries to convince her boyfriend Brayden (Ryan Webster, of Renfrew), a car nut who works in his Dad’s garage, to change his climate-change-denial views. She’s also exasperated with her parents. Her mother, Lois (Fran Pinkerton) bakes doughnuts named for well-known conspiracy theories and her Dad, Mel (Robert Tremblay), has a laundry list of his favourites.
Things explode when a crowd of protestors take over the shop and subsequently wear out their welcome, leaving everyone’s views altered, offering some possible answers to the question – how to change minds – and also how to get back to “normal” in a polarized society.
The cast also included Stone Fence Theatre favourites Jayson Bradshaw, Evan Burgess, Bianca Goldie, Cathy Lyons, Ambrose Mullin, and introduced Tabitha Green. The band was made up of Schroeder Nordholt (keys), Ish Theilheimer (percussion and guitar), Derek Tolhurst (bass), and Evan Burgess (guitar).
In 2022, Stone Fence Theatre launched a remarkable new musical about the life and death of Canada’s most famous artist: Tom Thomson & The Colours of Canada: Love, gossip and murder in Algonquin Park. It was created by Ish Theilheimer, with Peter Brown and was directed by Chantal Elie-Sernoskie.
The lead role of Thomson was played by Nigel Epps, of nearby Eganville, and his girlfriend and possible fiancée was played by Sarah Wright of Barry’s Bay. The old park ranger who tells the story was played by Ambrose Mullin, who has been with the company since its inception. His young alter-ego was played by Kirk Harber. Also featured were Stone Fence Theatre favorites Shirley Hill, Beverly Lewis and Robert Tremblay and singer-songwriter Jayson Bradshaw. Peter Brown’s “stride piano” genius provided the show’s music. The youth ensemble included Virginia and Marianne Mallen and Logan Roach.
In 2021, the company produced a musical revue called How Are Ya Now? to celebrate the easing of the pandemic. For health safety reasons, it was performed mostly outdoors at Station Park in Killaloe. How are Ya Now? was about our Ottawa Valley community and culture. It is a musical comedy variety show that celebrates our sense of fun and the things we love about the Valley and the values getting us through hard times. It includes classic songs from past Stone Fence Theatre shows and some timely new material. The performers are Danielle Bissonnette, Peter Brown, Shirley Hill, Ambrose Mullin, Fran Pinkerton, Derek Tolhurst, and company producer Ish Theilheimer.
In 2020, all performances were cancelled due to the pandemic. The company did produce an online music video that year, however, based on Ish Theilheimer’s song, “Essential Little Things.”
In 2019, Stone Fence Theatre features Up at Fred’s – Allons-y!, a new musical by Ish Theilheimer, directed by Chantal Elie-Sernoskie. The show revives the memory of Fred Meilleur, the beloved hotel-keeper of Chapeau, Quebec.
Every performance was sold out, including a benefit in the arena in Chapeau (where the photo on the right was taken after the show) attended by 600 people. The Meilleur family, especially Anne Meilleur, Sister Marie, and Gail Gavan, contributed greatly to script development.
Also in summer, 2019, Stone Fence Theatre featured J.P. Cormier in concert in Rankin, with opening acts by Emma and Will March and Peter Dawson and Carol Kennedy.
In 2019, The Stone Fence Theatre Showband was launched, featuring Chantal Elie-Sernoskie, Ambrose Mullin, Fran Pinkerton, Derek Tolhurst, Peter Brown, Evan Burgess and Ish Theilheimer. It performed (or was scheduled to perform) in Eganville, Barry’s Bay, Carleton Place and Eganville.
In 2018, Stone Fence Theatre presented a successful 19-show tour of its latest original: I Come from the Valley! Tales and Times of Joan Finnigan, by Ish Theilheimer, with Johanna Zomers, directed by Chantal Elie-Sernoskie. This musical brought to life some of the stories that the Valley’s most illustrious author collected and also the tumultuous times she lived through.
Joan published 28 books, was the daughter of one of the NHL’s first super-stars, Frank Finnigan, and she was raised in Roaring ’20s Ottawa. Her parents came from Shawville, her second home as a child, where she absorbed the Valley’s story-telling tradition. The play featured Fran Pinkerton as Joan, with music by the Donohue Family of Douglas. Click to view videos of Act 1 and Act 2.
In August, the company’s summer concert sold out again. It featured Gail Gavan with Louis Schryer, Erin Leahy and Timi Turmel.
In 2017, the company had a successful six-town, 14-show run of Stick Out Your Tongue and Say MOO, a romantic musical comedy by Ish Theiheimer featuring Evan Burgess, Danielle Bissonnette, Shirley Hill, Derek Tolhurst, Cathy Lyons and Chantal Elie-Sernoskie, who also directed the play and had her fourth baby in September, partially through the run.
It also staged a sold-out evening of Cape Breton music led by fiddler Andrea Beaton and supported by an all-star cast of East Coast musicians: Troy MacGillivray (fiddle/piano), Matt MacIsaac (pipes/whistles) and Nathan Bishop (vocals/guitar). Each is an outstanding talents in his own right.
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.
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.
In 2015, the company produced two original musicals by Ish Theilheimer: Here Comes the Train! The Ottawa Valley Railway Story, starring Peter Brown, Lesley Sneddon, Chantal Elie-Sernoskie, Phil Hoffman, Ambrose Mullin, Fran Pinkerton, Colin Wylie, Peter Frolander, and Ish Theilheimer, with Stephanie Pinkerton standing in for Chantal in Fall, and Valley Vic and The Christmas Temptations, starring Ambrose Mullin, Fran Pinkerton, Lawrie Barton, Rita Tolhurst, Shirley Hill and Kaylee Garcia, with band members Bryan Walsh, Schroeder Nordholt, Robin Pinkerton and Derek Tolhurst and chorus members Bailee Dombroskie, Jenna Schisson, Jude Pinkerton, and Luna and Solana Nordholt. Chantal Elie-Sernoskie directed both shows.
