Fan favourites and several debuts coming to Upper Canada Playhouse

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MORRISBURG — The Upper Canada Playhouse released its 2025 season this week, which will feature performances by musicians who routinely grace its stage, productions from familiar playwrights, and a few things audiences will see and hear for the first time.

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The playhouse released the details on Monday, for a season that will begin on Feb. 7 and 11 shows later come to a finale on Dec. 21. The schedule is sure to please fans of performer Leisa Way, producer Chris McHarge, the Dufflebag Theatre, and playwright Norm Foster— all of whom are scheduled to return to Morrisburg as part of the playhouse season.

Leading a duo of weekend concerts at the start of the season is Vegas Knights, a production from McHarge and Derek Marshall with musical hits that topped the charts from the 1960s to the 1980s, popularized by musicians such as Elvis, Tom Jones, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., and others. It is scheduled for four shows on Feb. 7-9.

Way and her Wayward Wind Band lead the second of those winter-weekend concerts with four performances from March 28-30 of Early Morning Rain, The Legend of Gordon Lightfoot. A playhouse season always includes at least one show led by Way, and the one for 2025 focuses on one of Canada’s best-known troubadours who wrote and performed titles that have become part of the Canadian songbook— audiences will hear some of them, such as Early Morning Rain, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Canadian Railroad Trilogy, Sundown, and If You Could Read My Mind.

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Dufflebag returns to Morrisburg for a single show on April 12 as it brings its family friendly, immersive production of Beauty and the Beast to the playhouse. Dufflebag productions are well-suited to families with children in kindergarten through Grade 8, inviting audience members to participate in the production— most from their seats, but some aside the theatre company’s cast from the stage.

A second McHarge production ties off the spring season with 13 performances of The Highwaymen, Biggest Hits of Willie, Waylon, Johnny & Kris, from April 23 to May 2. It’s a production well-suited to country music fans with songs from the four musicians in its title, which for anyone unaware carry the surnames of Nelson, Jennings, Cash, and Kristofferson.

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Foster will anchor the summer season with two plays, once again choosing the Upper Canada Playhouse to premiere a new comedy, A Woman’s Love List, from June 5-29. As the playhouse’s release tells it, it suggested Foster flip the script on his popular play The Love List, by having two women go through what they think makes the ideal man. He took the note and launches the resulting play at the playhouse.

A classic Foster comedy, Maggie’s Getting Married, will hit the stage from July 31 to Aug. 24, featuring a plot where the bride’s family wedding gets turned upside down by a big surprise.

Staged in between the two Foster plays will be The Sweet Delilah Swim Club, written by Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope, and Jamie Wooten. The club is a group of five funny gals whose annual girls’ retreat takes them to a cottage for plenty of laughs and meddling in each other’s business. It’s set to run from July 3-27.

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Tying off the summer will be Kristen Da Silva’s comedy Hurry Hard from Sept. 4-28, introducing the sweeping changes that come about when a woman is thrown into a men’s curling team short a player for a big bonspiel.

Funny guys Marshall Button and Sandy Gillis return to Morrisburg for eight shows from Oct. 14-19, reprising their Maritime duo characters Lucien and Jimmy the Janitor in a new production titled Senior Moments. Their last few prior appearances have always sold out.

The 2025 season will conclude with the return of the playhouse’s production of A Christmas Carol from Dec. 4-21. This production is an annual fan favourite and in recent years has also sold out every performance.

Tickets for the 2025 season are available by following the links at www.uppercanadaplayhouse.com, or phoning 613-543-3713 or toll-free at 1-877-550-3650.

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