Grinder's Grumblings

Here is the February Newsletter, everyone. Enjoy!

The first-ever "Beat the Winter Blahs Comedy and Variety Cavalcade" starts tonight and runs for four shows at the Fergus Grand Theatre. Call 519-787-1981 for tickets, or get them at the door. Come on out and support the best, brightest and newest members of the Grinder company, and chase away those winter blues!

I'm happy to report that rehearsals for our next show at the Elora Centre for the Arts, William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, are now underway. With a large cast and a small space we're going to have to come up with some very creative staging for this one... If you've never had a chance to see a Shakespearean play before, or you have seen a play but been totalled baffled, then "The Dream" is the perfect cure for you. It is one of Shakespeare's most-loved, most popular plays (and for the most-produced playwright in history, that's saying something about the play's lasting-power). It's a love story, a laugh-out-loud farce and a fantastic journey to fairyland all rolled into one. When I first read the text I was very young, no more than 13 or 14 years old, yet I had no problem understanding what was going on. The language of Shakespeare's plays may look and sound a bit different than our own, but it's still English, and ...

Just wanted to let everyone know that there's a public meeting this Thursday at 6:30pm at the Centre Wellington Sportsplex in Fergus regarding the draft Parks, Recreation and Culture Master Plan for the municipality. Why should you care? Because a significant element in the Master Plan is culture in general, and the Fergus Grand Theatre in particular. The plan is based on input from the community, facilities users, township staff, and other stakeholders, and it calls for substantial investment from the municipality for "capacity building" - be it new facilities, upgrades and renovations to existing facilities or simply equipping facilities and groups with the tools they need to make what they do easier, cheaper, and more enjoyable for all involved. The last time one of these master plans were developed one of the major results that came out of it was the Sportsplex itself. In that report, the cultural scene received a paragraph's worth of treatment. This time aroun...

With a crop of fresh faces now initiated into the company (many thanks to all who came out and enjoyed our reading of Euripides "The Cyclops" this past weekend) it's time to look ahead to the many exciting projects that we have coming this winter and spring at Grinder Productions. January: Beat the Winter Blahs - preparations for our comedy and variety cavalcade this weekend are coming along well. We still have some room for more performers, and it's only a one-performance commitment, so if you have some talent you'd like to share with the world this is your chance! This show will also be an opportunity to showcase the new members of Grinder Productions, as well as a few old faces who are returning to give us as much diversity in these performances as we possibly can. This is raw talent at its best, and I'm confident that the faces you'll see for the first time at this show will go on to become our company's future stars. February: No performances (...

This weekend at the Elora Centre for the Arts we will be presenting a staged reading of Euripides' The Cyclops, an ancient Greek Satyr play. The cast and chorus will feature some of the people who have auditioned for Grinder Productions recently, and for many of them it will be the first time they have ever been onstage. Come on out and support them in their theatrical debuts! Friday, January 23rd at 8pm Saturday, January 24th at2pm and 8pm

The Township of Centre Wellington has just recieved a draft report of the Parks, Recreation and Culture Master Plan. This document is available on the township's website here and contains a lot of important information about the direction the community has suggested we take regarding the growth and development of parks, arenas, community halls, the senior's centre, the Fergus Grand Theatre and other facilities. A bit long-winded, but definitely worth a read.