Paris Performers’ Theatre (PPT) gave residents a sneak peek into its upcoming 2024/2025 season during a Meet and Mingle event on Friday, March 15, 2024.
Visitors gathered inside of St. Paul’s United Church for a chance to chat with PPT board members, get a tour of the new space, sign on to be a member, and flip through PPT archives and memories.
After 24 years, of operating out of the Paris Fairgrounds, the theatre company announced in January that they were losing both the performance and storage space in their long-time home.
In the month that followed, the PPT team spent weeks consolidating many of the props, costumes, lighting equipment and set pieces, while Rubyyy Jones, the newly elected president of the PPT Board of Directors, was simultaneously looking for a new space.
The church, which is fittingly located on Broadway Street in Paris, is now PPT’s new and improved homebase and features plenty of functional space for the theatre to operate out of.
“We have four rooms,” said Jones. “We have an office, we have a costume room with props, we have a production room and one other. It’s great because we have this beautiful, dry, warm, tidy and organized space that I’m thrilled about.”
During Friday’s meet and greet, Jones and PPT board members had the chance to take guests on a full tour of the new storage areas, as well as, the two performance space options within the building.
Guests also got to hear about several confirmed projects coming down the line for the theatre company, including William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” as well as PPT’s traditional “An Enchanted Christmas.”
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream will be happening in August, in downtown Paris and it will be running both indoors and outdoors which is so exciting and cool. The Auditions will be happening from Sunday, April 14 to Tuesday, April 16. On the Sunday, auditions will from from 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., and on Monday and Tuesday, they will be from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.,” said Jones. “These are auditions, but if you are someone who is passionate about the story or wants to be involved on the stage, but you don’t feel ready to have lines, we want to encourage that group to still come out because we will be having two options for the auditions.”
For “An Enchanted Christmas,” Jones noted that they didn’t have any set dates for auditions, but that they will take place sometime in September.
“The show was one of the first ever productions of PPT and it’s got kids, it’s got tap dancing reindeer, it’s got adults and it’s got songs!” said Jones. “We are just really looking forward to it and we are really looking forward to have people of all ages involved and to be supporting a Paris playwright.”
Jones also noted that they will be launching the first ever Brant Theatre Festival this year.
“It will be a three-day event at St. Paul’s United Church and the first night will be our Weeknight One Acts, which we have done previously, and we wanted to continue that and that will be Friday, June 21. On Saturday June 22nd, is our focus on Paris playwrights and our Sunday event is our Brant Theatre Showcase,” said Jones. “Now, one thing that we’re doing a little different is that we’re going to present fully done performance-ready stuff, but we’re also going to present things in development. We’re actually a little bit nebulous in the exact makeup of the festival at the moment because it’s going to depend on who gets in touch when we announce all the details. We want to really celebrate and connect all the different theatre things happening, or as many as possible, within Paris and in the wider Brant area. That’s the whole purpose of this festival and our goal.”
Not only did Jones confirm the various shows, but on top of that, PPT will be hosting four creative skills workshops in May.
“They are all going to be donation based and we’re going to try and do them hopefully twice a year, but we’re going to run the series every Tuesday in May,” said Jones. “We’re going to do two hour workshops and it’s going to be Stage Management 101, Intro to Sound for Stage 101, Improv 101 and Auditioning 101.”
To stay on top of any news regarding PPT and future opportunities, Jones mentioned that there are a few ways to stay updated.
“If anyone wasn’t able to come to the meeting but they do want to get involved or even stay abreast of what’s going on, there’s two ways that they can do that. Number one, we have a Facebook PPT members group. This won’t have any ticket announcements or anything like that, but it will have things like auditions, news ways to get involved on stage, backstage or front of house,” said Jones. “And second, we have our links on our Facebook and on our Instagram and people can find a form that has questions like where you’re based, what you’re into, what you might want to get involved in, or any special skills you may have.”
