Conspiracy Conniptions, Stone Fence Theatre’s newest original musical, is a zany comedy set in a doughnut shop and sung in gospel music style. Audience members even enjoy hand-made doughnuts. The show opens for a 14-show summer and fall run at the Rankin Culture and Community Centre on July 19. Above: Ryan Webster, of Renfrew, and Amber Dagenais, of Eganville, star in Conspiracy Conniptions as Brayden and Abigail, young people caught up in controversies fragmenting their community. Photo submitted.
It’s about how the arrival of unruly protestors in the small town of Cobtown, Ontario causes a young man and a young woman and everyone around them to re-examine their lives and beliefs. Everything’s on the table at the doughnut shop. The play asks serious questions about how to change minds in today’s fragmented, polarized climate, and it suggests possibilities.
The show’s book and music, most of it in gospel style, are written by Ish Theilheimer, and it is directed and choreographed by Chantal Elie. Choir director is keyboard artist Schroeder Nordholt.
A lot of the action takes place in Cobtown Donut Heaven. There, Abigail (Amber Dagenais, of Eganville), a fitness nut whose Mom owns the shop, tries to convince her boyfriend, Brayden (Ryan Webster, of Renfrew), a car nut who works in his Dad’s garage, to change his climate-change-denial views. She’s also exasperated with her parents. Her mother, Lois (Fran Pinkerton), bakes doughnuts named for well-known conspiracy theories and her Dad, Mel (Robert Tremblay), has a laundry list of his favourites.
Things explode when a crowd of protestors take over the shop and subsequently wear out their welcome, leaving everyone’s views altered, offering some possible answers to the question – how to change minds – and also how to get back to “normal” in a polarized society.
The cast also includes Stone Fence Theatre favourites Jayson Bradshaw, Evan Burgess, Bianca Goldie, Cathy Lyons and Ambrose Mullin, and introduces Tabitha Green. The band is made up of Ish Theilheimer (percussion and guitar, doubling as Chester, the local reporter), Derek Tolhurst (bass), and Evan Burgess (guitar), and Schroeder Nordholt (keys), who also doubles as Elvis, the karaoke nut and buddy of Brayden.
To create the atmosphere, everyone attending gets a hand-made doughnut from McGuire’s Doughnuts in Pembroke and fresh-ground coffee (or tea) from the Madawaska Coffee Company.
Tickets are available online at www.Stonefence.ca or by phone at 613-401-1497 or, toll-free, 1-866-310-1004. Those ordering before July 5 get preferential Early Bird seating.
Theilheimer,I.,(2023 June29) Boy meets girl meets convoy in Cobtown in StoneFence Theatre’s new musical [media release]
