The Chemainus Theatre Festival’s 25th anniversary season is drawing to a close with an exciting new lineup of performances on the horizon for 2018.
Artistic director Mark DuMez said planning a successful season revolves around both “depth and breadth.”
“You look for diversity but you also look for something that appeals to the wide range of people that we serve,” he told the Chronicle after the new lineup was unveiled to season ticket holders and special guests at a luncheon last Friday.
There was a definite buzz in the room when Grease was announced as the summer musical, running from June 8 to Sept. 1.
The show will have big dancing shoes to fill following last summer’s Rock Legends, which broke the all-time box office record with 25,349 tickets sold.
However, first up on stage in February 2018 is Once, winner of eight Tony awards and based on a movie that included an Academy Award winning song ‘Falling Slowly.’
This will be followed by the return of Million Dollar Quartet and Kim’s Convenience, originally a play before becoming a CBC show.
“I tend to pick things that champion our good side of our better angels that they tend to find ways to lift us up as people and that’s important to me as an artist,” DuMez said.
Into September, Glorious will be on the Chemainus stage – biographical comedy drama about heiress turned opera singer Florence Foster Jenkins that was recently made into a film starring Meryl Streep.
Take a trip to Ireland from the comfort of your seats in October with Outside Mullinger.
Into the holiday season, there will be no better way to spend an afternoon or evening then the heartwarming musical Little Women – on stage from Nov. 16 through to the end of December.
Duncan Iron Works is the season sponsor for next year’s lineup and general manager Brent Dellebuur said the theatre is an enormous benefit to the community.
“The things I see done here at the theatre are beyond second to none,” he said. “As much as we’re a corporate sponsor I feel as though you people (at the theatre) have become part of my family.”
