Kathryn DeLory, who we saw as Barbara Fawcett in The Constant Wife, is back, this time as director.  Kathryn works full time in theatre production for the city of Brampton and still manages to find time to be a mainstay in the Markham Little Theatre family.  Over the last five years she has directed, or acted in, many of the company’s shows.

            Kathryn has brought together a cast that has achieved great chemistry together and is sure to tickle the funny bone and touch the hearts of audiences.

           Penney Donevan, who played Constance’s sister Martha in The Constant Wife, is cast in the role of Wynn, a psychologist who has her own neuroses.   Penney has been a member of Markham Little Theatre for eighteen years and, in addition to her many acting roles, has also served on the board for four different terms, and is currently the Treasurer.  Two years ago, she was honoured with the President’s Award, given by ACTCO on the recommendation of the MLT membership, in recognition of her contribution to Markham Little Theatre.

            Abby is played by Julia Guthrie who, in three years with Markham Little Theatre, already has an impressive lists of roles in her acting resumé, having appeared in the Norm Foster musical The Last Resort, as well as in Sylvia, I Hate Hamlet, Moon Over Buffalo, Time of My Life and The Art of Dying.   Before joining MLT, Julia was involved with productions of the Georgetown Little Theatre and Milton Little Theatre. 

            The combination of an excellent cast and a wonderful script for them to work with has produced the great chemistry that was in evidence throughout the rehearsal.  Kathryn has already done all the blockings—decisions about movements on stage—and watched closely as the actors worked their way through the play, perfecting the timings so important to stage comedy.    

            Assistant stage managers are Peggy Wyatt who performed the same duties for The Constant Wife and Sheila McHugh who we met on our January visit while she worked away in the costume room, wearing a different hat, so to speak.

            For The Long Weekend, Priscilla Marr has taken on the responsibility of costume designer and showed us some of her creations for this show.

             And to illustrate the collective spirit of MLT and the fact that every task is important, Michèle Browne, fresh from her best director award for The Constant Wife, is looking after set dressing this time and is bringing her usual enthusiasm and humour to the task. 

            After the rehearsal we spoke with director Kathryn DeLory.

            We asked her how the choice of The Long Weekend was made?

            “What we have is a play-reading committee.  We choose a season based on what we think our audience might like.  So it is a combination of things, some comedy, some drama, something that has a bit of costume in it, like The Constant Wife.  We try to highlight some things because we have some very strong female actors.  We try to do a show that has a really good strong female presence in it."

"The reason we do a Norm Foster every season is that he happens to be a personal favourite of ours.  He does comedies that are, really, very specifically Canadian comedies.  The audience absolutely loves him.  He comes to quite a few of the shows.  We like to put a Norm Foster comedy in every season, we have for the past six or seven seasons and I think this is the fourth or fifth one of his shows that I have directed for Markham." 

“It’s very difficult but we are very lucky to have this space (MLT's rehearsal facility on the grounds of the Markham Museum) because everything is under one roof .  So, when they are doing the construction, we can see what is happening.  We’ve got all the amenities here, costumes are here, props are here.  We get to actually map out a set that is exactly the size that we will be putting on stage at the Markham Theatre.  We get to use all the props.  We get to use all the costumes that we want.  They can bring in set pieces, as they build them, for us to try out and to use and that is absolutely wonderful.”

Kathryn lives in Erin, has an already busy work schedule, and a long commute to the MLT.  How does she manage?

“Once the show actually gets up and on its feet and blocked, I am here one night a week and usually on Sundays for rehearsal, just because of my schedule with the city of Brampton.  It’s tough to be here more than that but I have a really excellent stage management team who take the other rehearsals for me.  Once the show is blocked the actors really just need to do it again and again and again. They get the movements, the choreography down and the timing beautifully precise and then I come in and I break it down and polish it again and then we keep tightening it up.” 

Everything is coming together---a great choice of play, an excellent cast, gorgeous set and costumes---for a highly entertaining evening.