Guildwood

Selected as one of only six original pieces to be featured at the October 2023 Toronto Fringe Next Stage Festival, Guildwood was written by Braeden Soltys, and co-produced by GTP.

Inspired by the real “Guild of All Arts” that existed in Scarborough during the Great Depression, it tells the story of the last night before the Guild is taken over by the war efforts.

The Cast:

Kryslyne-Mai Ancheta - Violet, Camilo Diaz-Varela - Faye, Donna Garner - Rosa, Rick Hughes - Spencer, Taran Kim - Foster, W.Joseph Matheson - Georg, Meghan Caine - Ensemble, Rita Dottor - Ensemble, Tyler Pearse - Ensemble, Jake Schindler - Ensemble, Yunike Soedarmasto - Ensemble  

Joining the Guildwood cast was the dedicated creative and production team:  

Braeden Soltys (Writer and Director), Jake Schindler (Orchestrator and Music Director), Meghan Cain/Sierra Holder/Tyler Pearse (Choreographer), Donna Garner (Actor-Musician Advisor), Steven Fallagher (Dramaturgical Advisor), Sean Stone/Emerson Kafarowski (Lighting Designers), Keleshaye Christmas-Simpson (Stage Manager), Randy Pryce (Costume Designer), Bex Tralli (Sound Designer) 

Man of La Mancha

Garner Theatre Productions (GTP) presented Man of La Mancha in association with Magnus Theatre in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

Our own Artistic Director, Donna Garner, was the Musical Director for this production, and it ran November 10th until December 3, 2022.

A Man of No Importance

Even before Garner Theatre Productions was an official company, Artistic Director and Actor-Muso Donna Garner wanted to test the appetite for the Actor-Musician genre.  This gave rise to an October 2018 workshop production of A Man of No Importance, music by Stephen Flaherty, lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and a book by Terrence McNally, a story that emphasizes the need for tolerance and allowing people to express who they truly are. 

The theme of this opening production aligned very clearly with the company’s mandate to choose pieces that spark thought, debate and introspection.

The essence of Actor-Musicianship - each member of the acting ensemble also playing the music traditionally played by musicians not involved in the onstage storytelling - came to life, allowing a complete transformation for the actors as they use all their expressive devices to tell the character’s story, whether through text, song, underscoring or movement.

With only a week to rehearse and mount this workshop, the result was a thoughtful rendition of the piece to a full house, with fifteen cast members playing in excess of twenty-five instruments. 

This was the humble beginning of our company and showed that Actor-Musicianship is an important part of Canadian Theatre.