{"id":36552,"date":"2025-07-17T15:16:05","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T19:16:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=36552"},"modified":"2025-07-24T19:26:49","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T23:26:49","slug":"theatre-aurora-presents-a-grand-season-of-firsts-for-2025-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/theatre-aurora-presents-a-grand-season-of-firsts-for-2025-26\/","title":{"rendered":"Theatre Aurora presents a \u201cGrand\u201d season of firsts for 2025-26"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Despite entertaining Aurora residents for more than 60 years, Theatre Aurora has managed to conjure up some firsts and fresh offerings as they prepare to mount their 2025-2026 season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The season ahead, which begins September 19, combines a musical revue, some time-honoured classics, and one production five years in the making \u2013 all building off the 2024-2025 season which saw record numbers flock to the Henderson Drive theatre since the global pandemic shuttered its doors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a multifaceted kind of bringing people in,\u201d says Theatre Aurora Artistic Director Judi Cragg. \u201cWe want new people on our stage, we love the people who come back, but we want new people as well \u2013 and I would say in the last two years, we\u2019ve brought a lot of new people to the theatre. It was a great season, we really enjoyed it, and we\u2019re really looking forward to the next season as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Cragg and Theatre Aurora President Neill Kernohan began laying the groundwork for the 2025-2026 season, they wanted to make sure there was something for everyone, including younger audiences and younger performers alike, who so embraced last year\u2019s production of The Music Man, and Anne of Green Gables: The Musical, a highlight of the previous season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s important to always remember we are a community theatre and in order to be a vital theatre and keep going, we want to do well,\u201d says Cragg. \u201cWe want audiences to come in and we want them to enjoy what we\u2019re putting on, but we also need to really remember our cast and crew and all of the people who go into putting on our shows \u2013 we want it to be great for them as well. In addition to the children, we have quite a number of actors who are in their 60s and 70s, and at least one in her 80s who are wonderful performers, and when we\u2019re thinking while we\u2019re choosing shows we\u2019re looking at all of these people. We want them to be happy \u2013 it\u2019s an avocation for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The season begins in earnest on September 19 not with a play, and not with what Theatre Aurora audiences might expect from a traditional musical, but a musical revue celebrating the works of Rodgers & Hammerstein.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rodgers & Hammerstein\u2019s A Grand Night for Singing, which runs on select dates and times through September 27, looks at the dynamic Broadway duo\u2019s works, great and small, and features selections from such shows as The King & I, South Pacific, Me & Juliet, and Allegro \u2013 among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It signals an earlier-than-usual start to the Theatre Aurora season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe wanted something that would be fun, but with a smaller cast and easier to produce \u2013 not a full-scale musical,\u201d says Cragg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kernohan adds that Rodgers & Hammerstein were, \u201cthe Lin-Manuel Miranda of their time,\u201d referring to the accomplished creator of such musicals as Hamilton and In the Heights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTheir shows were innovative, new and exciting, and people just clamored to see every new show they did,\u201d he says. \u201cWe don\u2019t remember that as much anymore, that\u2019s kind of gone away, but the songs are beautiful, they\u2019re timeless, but there are twists and turns here and there. Here, the songs are sung in a different way \u2013 there\u2019s one old song from The Sound of Music that doesn\u2019t have nuns singing it, but someone else! It does play around a little bit, but it\u2019s really accessible, it\u2019s uplifting, and I think it\u2019s going to showcase our talents.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Music will also be in the air in their second offering for the season  \u2013 but in a very different way \u2013 as Theatre Aurora presents its first ever Pantomime just in time for the holiday season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Totally Scrooged! A Christmas Carol Pantomime by Caroline Smith runs November 28 to December 6, brings the Christmas tradition to life \u2013 fulfilling a long-held desire by Theatre Aurora to stage a family-friendly favourite like this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe wanted to get more kids in to the theatre and we love the fact Panto is so interactive,\u201d says Cragg. \u201cIt\u2019s just going to be great for the whole family. I used to take my daughter, when she was young, down to the Ross Petty pantomimes in downtown Toronto and it was so much fun for everybody, not just the kids. I remember my daughter, her friend and my friend sitting there and we\u2019d be laughing like crazy at the innuendo-laden lines. The girls who were five would be looking at us like, \u2018Why are you laughing?\u2019 and we\u2019d say, \u2018Never mind. Never mind.\u2019 There\u2019s stuff in there for adults, there\u2019s stuff for kids, and everybody gets involved in the crazy characters and just-for-fun mayhem \u2013 it\u2019s not a classic kind of music, but there\u2019s lots of music.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Totally Scrooged! loosely follows the Charles Dickens classic but is imbued with the music of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, rewritten to fit the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Auditions for the Panto are set to begin next week and they hope to bring in some of the kids who trod the boards in Anne of Green Gables and The Music Man, along with some newcomers, into the production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re hoping it is going to be big and people are really going to enjoy it,\u201d says Cragg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEXT WEEK: The New Year kicks off with a time-honoured and long-loved comedy that has entertained audiences across three centuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more on Theatre Aurora\u2019s upcoming season, including tickets, visit theatreaurora.com or call 905-727-3669. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite entertaining Aurora residents for more than 60 years, Theatre Aurora has managed to conjure up some firsts and fresh offerings as they prepare to mount their 2025-2026 season. The season ahead, which begins September 19, combines a musical revue, some time-honoured classics, and one production five years in the making \u2013 all building off […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-and-culture","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-9vy","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-23 12:35:33","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36552"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36553,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36552\/revisions\/36553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}