4th Line Theatre is pleased to announce the casting for its 2024 Summer Season. As previously announced, this season, the company’s 32nd, will feature two highly-anticipated world premieres: Alison Lawrence’s Onion Skins & Peach Fuzz: The Farmerettes, based on the book by Bonnie Sitter and Shirleyan English, directed by Autumn Smith, and Beverley Cooper’s Jim Watts: Girl Reporter, directed by 4th Line’s Managing Artistic Director Kim Blackwell.

Blackwell has this to say about the upcoming season, “I am thrilled at the talent level of the actors who will be involved this coming summer. There is a wonderful mix of new actors and others who have worked with us often," explains Blackwell. "We have many returning professional actors from our region, where there is an amazing talent base."

Onion Skins & Peach Fuzz: The Farmerettes will feature Rebecca Birrell who audiences may recognize from last year's production of D'Arcy Jenish's The Tilco Strike, as well as several actors making their 4th Line mainstage debut this season: Peterborough's own Aimée Gordon, and Reena Goze, Megan Murphy (not to be confused with playwright and local performer of the same name), Carina Sălăjan and Alicia Salvador.

Jim Watts: Girl Reporter will feature 4th Line's founder Robert Winslow, Thomas Fournier and Mikayla Stoodley, most recently seen in the 2023 production of The Cavan Blazers. Making their 4th Line debuts: in the title role of Jean "Jim" Watts, Katie Ryerson, who recently appeared as Moaning Myrtle in the original Canadian company of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, José Andrés Bordas and Anita La Selva, - who will also work as a dialect coach and intern director on the play.

Also returning to 4th Line, in Jim Watts: Girl Reporter, are Matt Gilbert as Dr. Norman Bethune, Mark Hiscox as Leslie Morris, Kelsey Powell as Ted Allan, Nathan Simpson as Ernest Hemingway, Hilary Wear as Emma Goldman and Lindsay Wilson as Martha Gellhorn. The cast will feature 29 professional and volunteer actors.

2024 Summer Season at the Winslow Farm

Onion Skins & Peach Fuzz: The Farmerettes*

World Premiere

By Alison Lawrence

*Based on the book by Shirleyan English & Bonnie Sitter

Directed by Autumn Smith

Original Compositions & Musical Direction by Justin Hiscox

Costume Design by Korin Cormier

July 1 – 20, 2024

Previews: July 1, 2

Opening Night: Wednesday, July 3

Monday to Saturday at 6 pm

Onion Skins is a funny and enlightening exploration of the largely unknown story of the teenage girls who stepped up and worked on farms across Canada to feed the troops, and indeed all Canadians, during WWII. These ‘Farmerettes,’ all in their 90s now, tell us that the summers they worked those farms were the best of their lives, even 70 or more years later.

* * *

Jim Watts: Girl Reporter

World Premiere

By Beverley Cooper

Directed by Kim Blackwell

Original Compositions & Musical Direction by Justin Hiscox

Costume Design by Korin Cormier

Set Design by Michelle Chesser

Fight Direction by Edward Belanger

July 30 – August 24, 2024

Previews: July 30, 31

Opening Night: Thursday, August 1

Tuesday to Saturday at 6 pm

Jim Watts: Girl Reporter is a fascinating exploration of the experience of trailblazing youth who illegally flocked to Spain to fight fascism, attempting to stop its march across Europe, in the mid-1930s. Jean ‘Jim’ Watts was the only woman to join Canada’s regiment in Spain, the MacKenzie-Papineaus. The play takes us from Toronto to Madrid, from political rallies to the battlefields of Spain. And Peterborough’s own Jim Higgins - union organizer and hero - figures prominently in the story.

The 2024 stage management teams include: Kelsey Powell, Emily Brown and Gailey Monner. The 2024 season includes an impressive 45 actors, designers and technicians. Including 4th Line Theatre’s full-time staff, the company will be employing just over 65 people between May and September of this year.

Our box office is open to the public to purchase tickets and for gift certificate redemptions for the 2024 Summer Season. Tickets, gift certificates and charcuterie snack boxes can be purchased by phone at 705-932-4445, toll-free at 800-814-0055, online at www.4thlinetheatre.on.ca and at 4th Line Theatre’s Box Office at 9 Tupper Street in Millbrook.