When the cast of Little Women takes to the stage at the Cambridge Arts Theatre next week, it will be well over a year since the young performers first rehearsed their roles in the Louisa May Alcott classic.
It will also be the first time the young cast has had the chance to perform in front of a live audience in 18 months.
Like every other theatre group across Canada, Penny & Pound Theatre Productions went virtual when the pandemic put live shows on pause.
Little Women, which was supposed to hit the stage last November, had to be shelved.
But in August, as restrictions began to ease, the 10-member cast dusted off their scripts and began rehearsing again in anticipation of a return to the stage.
That time has finally come.
"This cast has technically been rehearsing show for over a year,” says Piper Distel, who manages the theatre group's social media and marketing while her mom and theatre group founder Lori Distel runs the show with co-founder Corina Dunn.
Only 90 tickets are available for each performance, running Sept. 30 to Oct. 3 with a portion of the proceeds going to the Native Women’s Association of Canada in honour of the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation.
While larger theatre companies await public health guidelines to increase capacity and make indoor performances economically viable, smaller companies like Penny & Pound are moving ahead with small productions and small audiences.
“A lot of community theatres are opening up because we’re not used to making that much money anyways," Piper says, adding all performers pre-rehearsal and performance are being rapid tested and screened.
“It is very, very safe."
Lori and Dunn founded Penny & Pound in 2015 while Lori was theatre instructor for the City of Cambridge, teaching the children and youth program for the Cambridge Community Players.
“I saw this tremendous talent out there and also knew there weren’t very many juicy opportunities for these kids,” she said.
Local young performers in the troupe's target age range of 14 to 24 could, of course, audition for small or ensemble parts in large scale musicals, but Lori thought there should be more.
“I thought we’ve got to create better opportunities,” she says, not only as a chance to perform, but a chance to learn by taking on some of the most difficult roles available to actors.
Since their launch, Penny & Pound has taken on shows like The Crucible, Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, providing challenges to the young actors they wouldn't normally get anywhere else.
"We wanted to make these kids create strong abilities to either go on to further education in theatre arts or make their careers in the theatre," Lori says. "We don’t cheap out on them. We’re not easy on them. We’re quite hard on them."
The program quickly attracted interest from across the region and beyond, and has since auditioned young actors from as far away as Brantford and Guelph.
And because of their technical abilities, Piper says Penny & Pound was able to stay busy throughout the pandemic with a series of online performances and cabarets.
Those included a Halloween-themed cabaret called Boo Tube, a Yule Tube holiday cabaret, a From The Heart Valentine performance, and Miscast; a cabaret featuring kids performing dream Broadway roles they weren't suited to.
"We were one of the few theatre companies that didn’t really shut down," she says.
Penny & Pound, which normally produces and performs two plays and one musical every season, along with several “Second Stage” presentations on a smaller scale, simply kept going.
Last December, they created a radio musical presentation of A Christmas Carol, composed by Lori and adapted by Piper. The "fresh take on a pretty tired story” featured two women playing Scrooge and Marley.
"We try to be different. We try to be inclusive and look at things in a different light than people normally do, so that was really fun," Piper says.
In April, they put together and filmed a two-person musical called Daddy Long Legs, based on the Jean Webster novel.
In May, a young cast presented Small Blessings, interpretations from a collection of work by Joseph Distel, Lori's late husband and Piper's dad, who died of brain cancer in 2016.
"He left behind an array of very colourful written work," Piper says, adding the play helped raise over $1,000 for the Brain Tumour Foundation of Canada.
In July, they filmed a series of four one-act plays and posted them online for viewers to check out.
Most of the proceeds from the $12 tickets pay for rights to produce the plays, Piper says.
But their biggest project this year will come in December, when Curiouser hits the Cambridge stage.
Penny & Pound auditioned 65 performers from across the region last month for the chance to take part in the new musical that delves into the life of Alice In Wonderland author Lewis Carol.
"It's a really fun family friendly show and quite educational as well," Piper says.
Billed as a "return to the arts," the December production will feature members of the Cambridge Symphony Orchestra, Grand River Academy of Dance and local artists taking care of Wonderland backdrops and props.“We’re trying to hit a lot of facets of the arts and put them together in one big arts event,” Lori says.
By December, Piper says she hopes we'll be past the 90-head cap on audiences so more people can get out to enjoy live theatre again.
