2025 Season Announcement!

Dear friends and fans of Grinder Productions, Happy New Year!

For the past several years now I've chosen January 1st to announce the upcoming "season" at Grinder Productions. We don't have the same formality as a lot of other theatres (and we don't follow the usual Fall-Winter-Spring pattern that many other companies do) but I still like to have some way of organizing the work that I do, and this seems as good a way as any other.

I don't always choose a theme for the season, but this year I have - "Anchors and Sails." No, we're not doing plays on a nautical theme, but we are doing two distinct types of plays: "anchors," work that I'm fairly certain about, and "sails," work that may happen, or may not, depending on various things. The anchors provide the season with a stable foundation to build upon, the sails provide a little creative "turbulence," forcing me to think on my feet, get out of my comfort zone, and grow as an artist.

First, the anchors. All of these will take place at the Ennotville Library:

• Shackled to a Corpse: Saturday, March 1st, 10am. If you've ever wanted to provide some feedback on a play in progress, this is your chance. We'll begin the morning with a staged reading of the play (it's fairly short, only about 15 minutes in length), and then have a facilitator guide us through a structured discussion. I've chosen this play because I think it has potential, but I know it needs more work. For this show I'll be looking for three actors who are willing to act as readers, and an audience who are willing to participate in the post-reading discussion.
• The Electra of Euripides: July 18th and 19th, 8pm. I've always wanted to direct a Greek tragedy, and this one has always intrigued me. I've found a translation in an accessible verse, and I want to make full use of the imaginative possibilities of metered language to bring the world of ancient Mycenae to life. Though Euripides was able to produce the play with just three actors, I think I will need at least four.
• Maid of Stone: July 25th and 26th, 8pm. We're going to try and do this play again, after coming up short in 2024. Initially I had thought it best to simply let this show die, but I've changed my mind, and now I'm determined to bring this story of a woman, her daughter, and her mother to the stage. The politics that inspired this play are growing uncomfortably more plausible every day, and it doesn't seem quite as far-fetched as it did even a year ago. I'll give it one more rewrite before we get into rehearsals, but I think there's something there that I need to say, and I think the time I need to say it is now. I will need three powerful women, one from each generation, to bring this play to life.

As for the sails, there aren't a lot of them that I can talk about just yet, because I don't know if they're going to happen, but here are a couple that I'm fairly certain about:

• Playwright's workshops: July 19th and 26th. Similar to what I'm doing with Shackled to a Corpse in March, I'd like to use the Saturdays of each of my anchor shows in Ennotville this year to offer some other playwrights a chance to workshop their scripts, in return for right of first refusal on production the following year. More to come, but this is an idea I've been toying around with since 2019, and this year I'd like to make it happen.
• The Constant Lover: September 28th. For the past several years we've been putting a small piece into "Just Play," the annual free event to mark Ontario Culture Days at the Fergus Grand Theatre. Instead of doing one of my own plays this year I thought we'd do this light little romp about a pair of young lovers under a tree, written by St. John Hankin, a contemporary of George Bernard Shaw. This is a fun piece for two teen-aged actors, and just might be a harbinger of things to come from Grinder Productions in 2026...

Finally, I'd like to announce that we will be holding open auditions this year, for all confirmed and pending shows in the season. They will take place at the Ennotville Library on the afternoon of Saturday, March 1st, and are open to everyone. The first part of the afternoon will be a group audition, with everyone cold-reading from the same scripts. The second part of the afternoon will be reserved for individual auditions, for people who wish to present a prepared audition piece. That way people can audition in whatever manner is most comfortable to them. More to follow soon on that as well.

More details about everything Grinder Productions is doing this year will be announced on the blog as the season goes along, so please check there for the latest information. As always, feel free to reach out directly if you have any questions about a particular show, or role, or anything else.

Once again, on behalf of myself, Jules, and all the animals here on the farm, Happy New Year. I look forward to seeing you all at some time in 2025!

Eric Goudie
Creative and Executive Director
Grinder Productions