Friday, August 27th, 2024
For Immediate Release
Orlando’s Tymisha Harris performs as the legendary Josephine Baker in Josephine: A Burlesque Cabaret Dream Play. Photo Credit Eleonora Briscoe
TheatreOne announces the nine shows making up their new season
Nanaimo’s very own professional theatre company, TheatreOne, is thrilled to announce our 41st Season of brilliant professional shows.
“With 40 years behind us, TheatreOne continues to bring outstanding professional theatre to Nanaimo.” said Graham Pike, TheatreOne’s Chair of the Board of Directors. “In our upcoming season, the Mainstage series celebrates the power of diverse musical genres to entertain, enlighten and challenge us in three acclaimed theatrical performances, while the Showcase series will bring unique and exceptional performers to our community. Younger audiences will be dazzled by the three shows in the Just for Kids series, featuring magic, comedy and the circus arts. Please join us for another season of engaging live performance”.
MAINSTAGE SERIES
TheatreOne’s 2025/26 season kicks off with the first show in our Mainstage Series, Pump Boys and Dinettes, on October 10th and 11th at the Malaspina Theatre. Pump Boys and Dinettes is a crowd pleasing country musical which features Prudie and Rhetta Cupp from the Double Cupp Diner, singing and performing along with the talented boys from the gas station next door. There’s no traditional plot here — just slice-of-life vignettes and foot-stomping music that celebrates the simple joys of everyday life. It’s Americana served with a side of humor and a whole lot of heart.
The Mainstage Series continues with Josephine: A Burlesque Cabaret Dream Play on February 20th and 21st at the Old City Arts Hub – a new venue for TheatreOne. Coming to us from Orlando, Florida, Josephine, a burlesque cabaret dream play combines cabaret, theatre, and dance to tell the story of the iconic Josephine Baker, the first African American international superstar and one of the most remarkable figures of the 20th century. The show is intended for adult audiences as it contains adult content and partial nudity. Josephine shatters stereotypes of race, gender roles, and sexuality in this intimate, charming and haunting cabaret with a twist.
The final offering in our Mainstage Series is the film noir musical, Gunmetal Blues, on May 22nd and 23rd at the Malaspina Theatre. GUNMETAL BLUES is a hard-boiled detective yarn disguised as a lounge act. Live from the Red Eye Lounge, piano player and tour guide, Buddy Toupee, leads us on a voyage – a voyage of mystery, murder, and music as Sam Galahad searches for a missing blonde in a world of smoke and mirrors, shadows and shattered dreams.
SHOWCASE SERIES
TheatreOne is also thrilled to be bringing three shows to Nanaimo for our new Showcase Series. These are not shows that fit the traditional definition of theatre but are more “theatre-adjacent.” The Series begins on December 5th with Brrr-lesque & Baubles: A Holiday Spectacular with the Cheesecake Burlesque. The Victoria based Cheesecake Burlesque troupe has dazzled audiences across the globe with performances in Las Vegas, New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Seattle, Helsinki, Paris, Stockholm, Rome, and Berlin, and were the 2024 winners of the Burlesque Hall of Fames’ Best Large Group. This show is guaranteed to bring a merry glow to your cheeks.
Then on February 7th, Vitaly Beckman – one of the five professional magicians from last year’s April Fools Us, returns to Nanaimo for one performance of his solo show, Vitaly: An Evening of Wonders at the Malaspina Theatre. Vitaly stumped Penn & Teller three times on their hit TV show, Penn and Teller Fool Us. He has amazed and entertained audiences from all over the world, including his own 16-week off-Broadway run, and is hailed as one of the most unique and innovative illusionists in the world.
Featuring some of the most original illusions ever witnessed, many of which touch on tender topics such as love, loss, and growing old – Vitaly’s An Evening of Wonders does more than entertain – it moves, inspires, and instills a fresh perspective on life for all who experience it, as well as a greater realization that ours is a world of beauty and wonder.
The final show in our Showcase Series is Sound the Alarm Music/Theatre’s newest show, Ebony Roots, on February 17th at the Port Theatre. Local audiences will know Sound the Alarm from their other wildly popular concerts – Music of the Night: A Celebration of Andrew Lloyd Webber and A Whole New World: A Concert of Movie Musicals’ Greatest Songs.
Ebony Roots is a powerful and intimate music experience which journeys through prison work-songs, passionate spirituals, and iconic songs from the stage, to the emergence of Black Soul, R&B, Blues and Motown. This concert loosely narrates the evolving emancipation of the Black community through music from the North American perspective.
JUST FOR KIDS’ SERIES
The last three of our offerings are in our Just For Kids Series, which begins with Ragmop Theatre’s Hotel Vortruba on October 12th at the Malaspina Theatre. Hotel Vortruba is an exquisite world of magic, circus, and comedy, all wrapped up in the beauty of a surrealist Hotel. Described by a fan as “a Pixar film, written by Salvador Dali,” this piece of stunning, hilarious theatre is packed full of surprises. Items from the Hotel appear, reappear, change places, float, and have minds of their own.
Perennial favourite Dufflebag Theatre returns to Nanaimo on March 1st at the Old City Arts Hub with their version of Snow White. Dufflebag’s hilarious brand of participation theatre allows kids from the audience to take over the show, with hilarious results. This is the classic story of our heroine, as she encounters hapless huntsmen, bad apples, and little men with big hearts and short tempers, all leading to her own “happily ever after” moment.
The Just for Kids Series wraps up with Tapestry from Vancouver’s CircusWest on April 5th at the Malaspina Theatre. CircusWest is a circus arts training school for children and teenagers. Tapestry is a compelling collection of ground and aerial circus acts, performed by teenaged artists, athletes, and acrobats woven together to create a circus quilt like no other.
“I am so very proud to be bringing these nine amazing shows to Nanaimo Audiences”, adds TheatreOne Artistic and Managing Director Michael Cade. “TheatreOne is still struggling with rebuilding following the pandemic which decimated our audience. Over the last two years we have seen an almost 800% increase in our Mainstage Audience and more than 2,000% increase for our Just For Kids Series. While this is a spectacular increase, it is still only about one quarter of our traditional audience. For this reason, I have chosen to select works to appeal to the widest possible audience. I really hope you will consider joining us for the upcoming season.”
Tickets for all shows, with the exception of Ebony Roots, are available online through the TheatreOne website, TheatreOne.ca, by calling the TheatreOne office at 250-754-7587, or by coming to see us at the TheatreOne office at 60 Wharf Street (below the Nanaimo Art Gallery) between noon and 5pm Monday to Friday.
Ebony Roots tickets will be available through the Port Theatre.
TheatreOne is grateful for the support we receive from our sponsors, supporters, and funders. These include Nisa.net+, Kal Tire, Thrifty Foods, Pinnacle Pharmacy, Signage, CHLY, the 460 Group, BMO Nesbitt Burnes, Island Savings, Mid Island Co-op, Allegra Printing, Dairy Queen, The City of Nanaimo, Panago, MNP – Alyssa Thomas, Hullo Ferries, The Province of British Columbia, Kinsu Chocolates, The British Columbia Arts Council, the BC Live Performance Network, and the Nanaimo News Bulletin.
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For more information, or to arrange interviews, contact:
Michael Cade – Artistic and Managing Director – TheatreOne
250-754-7587 michael@theatreone.ca
About TheatreOne
TheatreOne has been bringing professional theatre to Nanaimo and the mid-Island for more than 40 years. We engage diverse local audiences of all ages and persuasions, including the very young, and in doing so support theatre professionals and local businesses. We work with playwrights from British Columbia and across Canada to foster development of new Canadian works; we premier new productions; and through our support to touring artists we give Nanaimo audiences access to great theatre developed elsewhere.
TheatreOne acknowledges the support of the province of British Columbia
TheatreOne acknowledges and thanks the Sunueymuxw First Nation, on whose traditional territory we live, create, and perform.