Victoria Playhouse plans packed season

The small but mighty Victoria Playhouse is gearing up for another season of plays and concerts in Victoria-by-the-Sea, P.E.I., for its36th year.

Known for its intimacy and quality, the Playhouse will present four stage productions this year, one more than usual.

Manager Pat Smith and assistant manager Emily Smith, her daughter, dropped by Mainstreet P.E.I. to tell Angela Walker about the performances.

"We're beginning our season with a comedy called The Birds and the Bees by Mark Crawford," said Pat Smith. "Mark is a young, up-and-coming Canadian playwright, he's from Ontario. This play, The Birds and the Bees, has just taken off across Canada. This summer I think there's four productions of this show, so we're really lucky to have found the show and gotten the rights."

Next on the schedule, in August isa play called On A First Name Basis, said Emily Smith.

"That is a play by Norm Foster, who we've produced many times at the Playhouse, and he's always been very popular with our audiences," she said. "It's very funny and sophisticated and dry. I'm quite excited about this one. When we first read it, we were laughing our heads off in the office."

Erskine Smith tribute

The next show features a group that is already well-known as the Island's favourite storytellers, The Four Tellers.

The Smiths have been trying to get them to Victoria for quite awhile, and this year they found a way to make it happen

The Tellershave something special in mind for the theatre's founding artistic director, the late Erskine Smith, Pat's husband and Emily's father.

"We'll do three nightsfor you, and we want it to be a tribute to Erskine," Pat said the group told her. "They wanted to have a show that was something different than the show they do in Georgetown, so we're pretty moved and honoured that they'd want to do that. And we also think that our audiences will love that."

Chris Gibbs back

Last in the season is a returning favourite.

"Chris Gibbs will be back with us, this will be his third season in a row," said Emily. "He opened for Cathy Jones a couple of years ago, and there were some people who thought that the opening act was their favourite part of the show. So we invited him back the next years, and he did a great one-man stand-up show about his experience being a father, and that went over well."

This year he's doing more of a play, called Not Quite Sherlock: The Case of the Deceptive Detective, about a bumbling detective in Victorian London.

Also on the bill is a series of concerts over the summer, eight in total, including shows by Amelia Curran and Old Man Luedecke.

Tickets for Playhouse performances are on sale now at the theatre's website.

• MORE P.E.I. NEWS|Lobster traps burn in Pleasant View shed fire Sunday
• MORE P.E.I. NEWS|Recession hit university graduates hard, StatCan study shows