The howls of coyotes are mixing with howls of laughter this summer at the Caravan Farm Theatre.
The 41st summer season of the Armstrong theatre has opened with The Cotoyes, a romantic musical comedy by award-winning playwright Peter Anderson. The production hit the outdoor stage on July 16 and will run until Aug. 11.
Anderson created The Coyotes back in 1978, the same year Caravan Theatre first opened its gates.
“The Coyotes is a fantastical comedy with a lot of heart,” says Caravan’s artistic director Estelle Shook. “It has an underlying theme of water and is set in the not-so-distant future when water is becoming scarcer, but it also has themes of hope, love, magic, and also hilarity in the form of three wily coyotes.”
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The production features music by John Millard and a star-studded cast with some familiar faces.
Natascha Girgis, who can be seen in Syfy’s hit show Wynonna Earp, returns to Caravan for the role of a mother named Agnes, while Christine Quintana and Kaitlyn Yott are back at the farm to play her daughters, Vida and Leoty. Secwépemc storyteller and drummer Kenthen H. Thomas from the Neskonlith Nation is also on stage, acting as the ghost of their father.
Caravan veterans James Fagan Tait and Tom Jones play the so-called villains, Wanda and Bigelow, while Michael Kennard, Aaron Wells, and Anderson perform as the Coyotes Muzzleguts, White Shadow, and Slobberjaw, respectively.
Anderson says his coyote characters have gotten “a little older over the years, but no wiser, and at the same time they are eternal and still imbued with their undying trickster spirit.”
Past Caravan productions created by Anderson include The Ballad of Weedy Peetstraw and Law of the Land.
The theatre’s gates open at 6:30 p.m. and the show starts at 7:30 p.m. every night of the week excluding Mondays.
For tickets, call the Caravan box office at 1-866-546-8533 or visit www.caravanfarmtheatre.com.
