About

Please Entertain This Thought –

And enjoy reading theatre reviews & news

 

Mary Alderson 

Mary has been a fan of live theatre since her first visit to the Stratford Festival as a child, where she saw Christopher Walken and Louise Marleau in Romeo and Juliet. As a teenager, she had a summer job at the Grand Bend Tourist Information booth. Huron Country Playhouse founder James Murphy gave her free tickets to his inaugural season so she could promote it to visitors. She has a vivid memory of sitting in a tent on a folding chair, with her feet up on the seat in front of her, to avoid the rivulets of rain flowing through the mud and gravel towards the stage. Unfortunately, the productions that summer were less memorable, but improved greatly over the ensuing years.

Mary holds a B.A. in Honours English and an M.A. in Journalism from the University of Western Ontario, London. After graduation, Mary was a reporter for the Exeter Times-Advocate and reviewed shows at Huron Country Playhouse.

Mary returned to writing theatre reviews in 2004 on a freelance basis. She has supplied publications such as the Strathroy Age-Dispatch, The Focus, and Sarnia’s First Monday magazine, as well as the website www.theatreinlondon.ca. In 2013, the well-known website Broadway World started posting her reviews. Her reviews have been heard on MyFM Radio Strathroy-Caradoc 105.7 and MyFM Exeter & Grand Bend 90.5.  You can search all her reviews on this website, either in “Now Playing” or “Archives”.

Mary and her husband, Victor, always made their home in Grand Bend or around that area of Ontario. But during the Covid-19 pandemic, they moved to beautiful, historic Port Hope. Victor is an artist who paints in oil and acrylic.  As well, he  does scenic photography.

Their daughter Chelsey is a social worker. She, her husband, Jonathan, and their two children make their home in Northumberland County. 

Their son Thomas is a professional actor/singer/dancer and director. Among his favourite roles are swinging in Kinky Boots, the Mirvish Production, Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto; Mary Sunshine in Chicago, Globe Theatre, Regina;  Mamma Mia, Citadel Theatre, Edmonton;  Robertson Ay in Mary Poppins, Neptune Theatre, Halifax; Moody in Anne of Green Gables, Theatre Calgary; Tommy Djilas, The Music Man, and Moody Spurgeon MacPherson, Anne of Green Gables, Capitol Theatre, Port Hope; Mordred in Camelot, North American tour; Bud Frump in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and Prince Herbert in Spamalot with Drayton Entertainment.  More recently, he has moved into directing, and was Assistant Director of White Christmas at the Shaw Festival and Assistant Director of Rent and La Cage Aux Folles at the Stratford Festival. Recently, he directed Dear Jack, Dear Louise at Victoria Playhouse, Petrolia. 

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Sandi Laird 

Sandi was born and raised in London, Ontario.  She is a graduate of HB Beal Secondary School and holds a BA in English from Western University.   A lifelong reader, film lover and theatre fan, she loves the magic of storytelling.    Sandi and her husband Darrell met when both took a Thanksgiving weekend bus trip to New York City.  They were seated together at a production of I Ought to Be in Pictures (1980) starring Bill Macy and Dinah Manoff.  And the rest – as they say – is history!  They’ve made at least a dozen trips to Broadway since then and enjoyed all opportunities to take in plays and musicals locally.  Sandi and Darrell have two sons and a daughter.  They enjoy lots of time with their four grandchildren and their two dogs Milo and Poppy. In addition to family, travel and time with friends are their top priorities.  

 

Debbie McClure

Born and raised in London, Ontario, Debbie has written three fiction novels, each traditionally published by professional publishing houses, one in the US and one in Canada. She has contributed to several North American-based anthologies and has interviewed numerous authors from around the globe for a third-party writer’s blog out of Pasadena, California. She has also co-hosted and facilitated a very successful two-day writer’s event in Grand Bend under the umbrella of the Grand Bend Art Center. Here she and her associates brought together 4 notable writers from Canada and the US as speakers to talk to new and established writers from London and Lambton Shores.
In addition to writing, Debbie worked as a Real Estate agent, mobile mortgage advisor for CIBC, and has worked as the Content Coordinator and Editor of Grand Bend & Lambton Shores Living and Goderich Living magazines since April, 2022. Debbie now lives in Goderich, Ontario with her husband, two small dogs and two cats and loves living back along the shores of Lake Huron. In addition, she looks forward to attending and reviewing the outstanding productions of the Blyth Festival in Blyth, Ontario. The journey continues.

 

Sookie Mei 

Sookie has been writing reviews since her Gazette days at Western University, where she received her Honours English and Drama degree.  An ardent theatre lover, she can be seen in the audience at as many shows as possible, scheduled around her full days of working as a technical writer, playing bass guitar in Betamaxx (an 80s cover band), reading voraciously, and taking her dog Flynn out for walks!  Sookie is also a theatre producer with her company Theatre Soup, and loves to play both on and off stage.

 

 

 

 

Marilu Murphy  

Marilu was born in the country. Most would consider her a little wild child with a vivid imagination. She was an artist, a lover of all animals, horses in particular, have always been part of her life. She was also a writer and storyteller at a young age. She enjoyed Drama, English Literature and Art Classes in high school.  She compared writing to painting and words were just another medium to create beautiful pictures. After graduating from high school, she attended the Port Huron College of Cosmetology.  After graduation, she continued her with yet another artistic medium. She cut, coloured and manipulated hair into whatever the client desired. Over the years, her dedication to hairstyling lead her to teach and design college level lesson plans and hairstyling programs. For twelve years she was a member of the Lambton College Hairstyling Apprenticeship and Diploma Program faculty. Her husband Mike was an avid sailor and for their retirement, his plan was to sail south and onward to the Carribbean with their whippet Tommy. This was Marilu’s chance to delve into writing again. Instead of a log, she wrote a well read and successful blog of their harrowing experiences aboard their sailboat Layla. Marilu has continued on with her art, her medium being coloured pencils, soft pastels and oil pastels. She is a volunteer with Community Living Sarnia – Lambton teaching art techniques to adults.  Now writing reviews for theatre rounds out everything that she loves.

Vicki Stokes 

Vicki has always been passionate about the performing arts.  As a young girl, she took theatre arts classes in which the students developed a play and performed it on the McManus Stage at The Grand in London.  Fortunately, she realized that her talent lies in writing as opposed to performing.  Over the years, she has enjoyed theatre big and small from The King and I with Hayley Mills to Shakespeare performed by students in Waterloo Park.  She is a huge fan of small town theatres and homegrown talent.
Vicki has an Honours B.A. in Psychology from Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo and has studied library tech.  She was employed at Kitchener Public Library for over 13 years until making a major life change in 2017, moving back to her rural roots.  Besides being an avid gardener on her beautiful two-acre property, she writes novels, short stories and non-fiction, just for pleasure.
She lives with her husband and two wonderful sons near Grand Bend, where she met Mary through the local writers’ group.  She currently assists with the business and marketing end of her husband, Shaun’s, business, Aerodynamic Driving School (of Forest and Stratford).  Together they own several classic vehicles and enjoy attending car shows.

 

What we do

By using “Search” on this website you can find reviews from these theatres and more.  We review shows at various Toronto Theatres, including the Mirvish productions.  Now, we cover theatres east of Toronto and across southwestern Ontario. 

• Drayton Entertainment venues:
  • Huron Country Playhouse & Playhouse II, Grand Bend
  • St. Jacobs Country Playhouse & Schoolhouse Theatre, St. Jacobs
  • Hamilton Family Theatre, Cambridge
  • Drayton Festival Theatre, Drayton
  • Kings Wharf Theatre, Penetanguishene
• Victoria Playhouse, Petrolia
• The Stratford Festival, Stratford
• The Shaw Festival, Niagara-on-the-Lake
• The Blyth Festival, Blyth
• The Grand Theatre, London
• The Port Stanley Festival Theatre, Port Stanley
• The Capitol Theatre, Port Hope
• Globus Theatre, Bobcaygeon
• The County Stage Company, Prince Edward County
• The Orillia Opera House, Orillia
• Tweed and Co. Theatre, Marble Arts Centre, Actinolite
• The Village Playhouse, Bancroft 
• Thousand Island Playhouse, Gananoque

A special Thank You to Matt Mullen of Red Chair for his technical expertise in the creation of this website and blog.  www.redchair.ca