Grinder's Grumblings

The Cast of Electra Calista Alison - Chorus: Normally starring in backstage crew roles, Calista is beyond thrilled to be making her stage debut in Electra! She is so grateful to Eric, and Grinder Productions for this opportunity, mentorship and trust. Big thanks to the cast for their kindness and support! Gareth Roberts - Orestes:  Gareth is a recent graduate of UTM’s Theatre and Drama Studies joint program with Sheridan College, now enjoying taking opportunities to branch out across acting, writing and plenty of new artistic challenges. He hopes you’ll enjoy tonight’s performance, and asks that theatre audiences always continue to push themselves in their engagement with art; being curious, making connections, and of course letting it change them! Credits include  Twelfth Night as Sir Toby ; The Devised Project: The New Dress and Miss Milan/Ensemble; The Alchemist as Lovewit; The Play that Goes Wrong as Trevor. Cassandra Hunt - Farmer, Old Man, Messenger, Clytaemnestra, Ca...

  Introducing the Cast of Dirty Deeds at Handlebar Dan's House of Old Wives: Looking innocent, but really not, is John Dibben, playing the dastardly villain, Munro "Moneybags"  Maclean. The Villain. Again. Type cast or great acting? Only his family knows for sure. Villains: Mr. Potter, Scrooge, Shylock, Big Daddy, Malvolio, Hermann van Daan… Just to name a few. Nice Guy’s: Selsdon Mowbray. That’s it. Not so Nice Guys: Capt. Frank Burns (Mash), Paul (Hayfever), Paul (Murder at the Howard Johnson’s), Father (Having Hope at Home). He's sure there’s more but he's out of space. Wondering who farted (but pretty sure it was John) is Michelle Salmon, playing the feisty French Maid Fifi. Michelle has been involved in theatre in one way or another, in the surrounding community for over 35 years. Her passion is acting, specifically taking on comedic character roles. She is thrilled to share the character of Fifi with you. A few favourite lines from the show (only one of whic...

  For the past few months my go-to bedtime reading was the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. As part of my decades-long quest to slay the demons from my misspent youth, ploughing through this weighty tome has been on my to-do list for quite some time, and I’m pleased to say that I’m finally through with it, and have moved on to books that are much lighter (Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, at the moment). However it was an moderately-good cure for insomnia, and even good exercise - the book was so heavy that my wrist muscles seem stronger just from holding it all every night for months on end.  But as much as I did not enjoy the book, I did learn a lot from it. And one of the things that I am learnt is just how important the literature of ancient Greece (be it poetry, prose, or drama) is to the entire canon of Western literature. Basically, everything we write today is built off of the writing of the Greeks, or more accurately the misinterpretation of the writing ...

The 2026 Grinder summer season at the Ennotville Library kicks off with Dirty Deeds at Handlebar Dan's House of Old Wives (or how Sally Simple saved the Sarsaparilla Saloon) July 17th and 18th. Thanks to cast member Nick (aka our hero Joshua Jehosephat) for the poster: I thought for this post we’d have some fun, and give you a quick primer on how to enjoy a Gay 90’s Melodrama. These kinds of plays are perfectly enjoyable just as they are, but they’re a lot more fun if you know a little bit about the conventions that shape the genre. So here we go! First, by the term ‘’Gay 90’s’’ melodrama, we mean the 1890’s, and we mean gay in the sense of the term that it meant at that time: happy, silly, and carefree. No offense to anyone who thought it meant something else. This is the "girl-tied-to-the-railroad-tracks" genre, in that there is almost invariably some reference to a train, a railroad, or a railway company of some sort. Some plays feature trains more than others. Acting...

Coming this summer to a windshield near you.. . It's that time of year again. No, not the ''spring is sprung, grass is rizz'' nonsense, though we've got that in plenty around here right now (the copious pictures of cute baby animals will have to wait for another day). I'm talking about all things Grinder. Loyal readers of this blog will know that this is the time of year where the posting usually trails off, as I get overwhelmed by the operational demands of shows in production. I'm determined not to let that happen this year, but this post is already over two weeks behind schedule, so it's not looking promising... However, I am looking forward to this year's productions - they're completely different from what I've ever done before. Both shows are almost cast (I know, right!) and there's a level of excitement around the productions that I haven't seen at this early stage in a long time. I daresay I might even be starting to get e...

Attentive readers of my previous post may have picked up on it, but last month we did something that we haven't done in several years - we went on a vacation. Ephesus. The Library. It was a glorious trip, not without its hiccups, but well worth the long period of saving and preparing (ours is not a get-up-and-go lifestyle). We were in need of a break, and we got it. Windy day at the Acropolis. And as is usually the case whenever I'm away from home the creative energy, and the time to indulge it, seem to come forth, and I found myself filling more than a couple of notebooks with material. There are some short plays that, admittedly, still need some work (Vampire Cowgirls, anyone?) and some ideas for longer works that coalesced on the waves into some concrete plans, some of which I've subsequently started on since coming home. Not everything I wrote will end up as a finished play - I know that, and I would be surprised if there's another gem hiding in the rough notes, but...