At long last, it's time for BurlOak Theatre Group to go back to the theatre. The Oakville-based community theatre company, also known as BOTG, is now playing its annual pantomime show for families this holiday season - albeit with a few small changes.
Usually staged in the last two weeks of December, the now-annual tradition of retelling classic fairytales in the style of an English musical comedy is one of the best selling theatre shows in Oakville every year. The show opens tonight and is running until Wednesday, December 29, 2021.
Like previous years, the show is co-written by BurlOak veterans Chantal Forde and Tim Cadeny, with Forde also serving as director and Cadeny appearing in drag (a pantomime tradition) as the main villain. They work on the show for most of the year, preparing for its live debut each Christmas.
"This isn’t your traditional pantomime," says Forde. "This show has something for everyone. It's a fun time - and it’s a nice way to be in person again."
For this year's return to live performance, the group is retelling Alice in Wonderland with a twist of the classic movie Back to the Future; a parody of finally being able to return to having live audiences.
Cadeny jokes the film's closing line was an inspiration; instead of roads, like character Doc Brown says, Cadeny explains, "We’re back to the theatre. Where we’re going, we don’t need Zoom."
In a second twist, however, this year's show was moved from the Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts to Film.Ca Cinemas. The original change was made to perform in a slightly smaller venue, therefore making it easier to distance audiences. Having the movie screen also opens new creative possibilities, meaning this year's show is "75% live and 25% a big screen film," according to the creative team.
"We’re excited about doing it at Film.Ca," says Cadeny. "When we locked in the cinema was our venue, it fed into our script. Our script pays homage to a variety of films like Dead Poets Society, Dirty Dancing and Napoloeon Dynamite." Forde adds, "We wanted there to be these throwbacks to the cinema as we’re doing live pantomime in a movie theatre."
Last year's show was filmed at the BOTG studio in Oakville and released online digitally. But Alice doesn't just mark the company's return to in-person pantomime - it's also the group's first live show in almost two years, with their last live performance being a female-led version of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple at the Oakville Centre in January 2020.
Rehearsals have since been underway since September 2021, with the cast and crew excitedly gearing up to perform over the next two weeks. Even simply going back into the rehearsal hall was an emotional experience for the artists.
"The first read through made me cry," Forde admits. "It was so exciting to have people back in the studio and starting something."
Among the actors interviewed for this story, that was a common theme. Lexcie Pimentel, who stars as Alice, hasn't performed since 2019 when she was working with youth theatre. She says both doing the show and working at the cinema "is all new, but I’ve really enjoyed it a lot."
"It’s exciting, but it's definitely terrifying," Lexcie says with a laugh, "because I haven’t done anything in two years. It's intimidating o remember what it feels like to be in front of an audience and have the lights on you. But it’s so good to be back. And the show is so funny...I’m laughing 80% of the time!"
Two of the other main characters, fusing Alice with Back to the Future, is Carling Tedesco playing Marty McRabbit (the White Rabbit meets Marty McFly) and Karim Bayoumi as Doc Hatter (the Mad Hatter with Doc Brown.)
Both of them talked about the humour and challenge in playing two famous characters simultaneously.
"I don’t know where Marty McRabbit came from," Tedesco admits, "but Marty McFly IS the White Rabbit. Marty's first line in the movie is 'I’m late for school', and the White Rabbit says, 'I’m late!' - both of them are in a race against time." As Carling points out, there are more connections in the stories than audiences might expect.
Bayoumi says for him, "the best part is the frantic craziness of both characters. Doc Hatter has this wild imagination that thinks of worst case scenarios and the best solutions." He also mentions how influential Christopher Lloyd’s performance as Dr. Emmett Brown (from the original Back to the Future) was for him.
What the two actors share in common is how excited they are for live audiences to return in the first place. "Everyone who shows up will laugh and have a great time," promises Bayoumi. Tedesco adds that for her, "feeling the connection with my fellow actors and the audience is a dream come true."
Despite the challenges from moving to Film.Ca, the team can't wait to finally perform. Forde and Cadeny talked about lights, microphones, the lack of a proper backstage and fitting the large cast on a small stage all as new obstacles to mounting the production.
But it started from a desire to tell a great story, too. Forde says they "were afraid of 'Alice in Wonderland' because there’s no antagonist until the end. So what does she fight? What are the stakes?" Their new story adds Cadeny's Queen of Hearts as a villain from the start, so Alice has an exciting story right from beginning to end.
Ultimately, it's a fulfilling an emotional experience getting to the finish the project, rewarding for both BOTG and its audience that the live reunion is finally taking place - even though new restrictions have capped the theatre at 50% capacity for its run. Yet every challenge has been overcome, and the show goes on.
As to why the pantomime is so important to Oakville culture, especially now, Forde says, "This year I think everyone could use a bit of extra silly in their life. And this show is a fun time for everyone."