Several residents gathered on the grounds of the Bell Homestead for Brant Theatre Workshops’ performance of “Skater” on Sunday, July 20, 2025.
“Skater” is a teenage girl living by her own rules. With a self-destructive attitude and hidden past that she guards close to her heart, the young girl finds herself in hot water when she throws a rock through the window of the local police station.
While mourning her family, Skater falls asleep at their grave site and is discovered by an officer she calls “Battle Axe Kate.” Skater is taken into custody and sentenced by a judge to live in a group home known as “Sue’s Place,” a nod to Brantford’s Why Not City Missions’ Charlie’s Place.
It’s there she meets Hot Dog, a former resident of Charlie’s Place who found a way to put his talents to good use.
On top of her new living conditions, Skater is instructed to complete community service at the Adelaide Hunter Hoodless Homestead and National Historic Site in St. George.
During her time at the museum, Skater meets Rae and learns more about Adelaide Hunter Hoodless, the loss of her young child, and the many contributions she made throughout her lifetime.
In real life, Hunter-Hoodless’ youngest child died at the age of 14-months old after complaining of stomach pains. Living in Hamilton at the time, she discovered that the city was using unpasteurized milk. Growing up on a farm, she knew the dangers of milk if not properly prepared and she set out to spread the word.
She would go on to be an educational reformer and was known as the co-founder of the Women’s Institute, the National Council of Women, the Young Women’s Christian Association and the Victorian Order of Nurses. Her work played a large role in providing education for women to help protect their families from harm.
During the intermission, Karen Stewart, Executive Director of Why Not City Missions, said she was enjoying the show.
“It’s really well done and I like that it’s combining services that are available in town with unique pieces of our local history,” she said. “I had no idea Adelaide Hunter Hoodless was sort of the fuel for all those things so that’s been really cool to learn. I’m also really liking all the interactions and how they’re talking about grief as being a catalyst for a lot of different behaviors and turning that into growth. It’s a really neat play so far and I’m looking forward to seeing how it ends.”
Following intermission, Skater learns more about “Battle Axe” Kate’s story, her battle with grief and how she triumphed over own circumstances.
Inspired by the stories of the two women, Skater learns how to take her grief and turn it into something that can help others.
Skater later tells Hot Dog about her Anishinaabe roots, and asks him if he could make her a ribbon skirt for an upcoming Ladies Who Lead event. It’s there she shares more about the loss of her family and advocates for proper fire prevention education in First Nations communities.
“Adelaide Hunter Hoodless once said ‘educate a boy, and you educate a man. Educate a girl and you educate a family,’” said Skater. “Let’s follow Addie’s example, let’s educate a community. We can educate the girls, our leaders and communities. Let’s be the leaders who can make a difference.”
In the end, despite all that she’s gone through, Skater shows resilience in the face of adversity and along the way, finds support in Hot Dog, “Battle Axe” Kate and Rae, building a community of her own and turning her grief into something more.
Vincent Ball, the Brantford-based playwright who penned “Skater,” is known for creating works that not only reflect local history, but communicates a message with viewers as well.
With plays like “Doing Our Bit,” “Veteran of Vimy,” “Sisters of Solace,” and “Footlocker” already under his belt, Ball wrote “Skater” after Nancy Carubba, Manager for the Adelaide Hunter Hoodless Homestead asked him if he would be interested in doing so.
“The homestead has a tough gig; number one, they could use some capital funding just to keep the building going, but also they need some operational costs too,” he said. “I was asked, ‘what would you do to raise Addie’s profile?’ and I said, ‘well, I could write a play but make it more modern, and make it more relevant to younger people or other people, and pose the questions of, ‘what would Addie do today?’ So that was the whole idea behind this, to try and boost the homestead and boost its profile in some way, and shape the story in a more modern while, at the same time, paying homage to Addie and her legacy.”
When asked how important it was to him to pay tribute to the Brantford-Brant area and its history by weaving in several existing organizations into the story, Ball said that he wanted to highlight different organizations that are often overlooked.
“There’s a lot of really great organizations that do a lot of stuff around here but I don’t think that they get a whole lot of publicity for what they do. They all have a really important role, and they’re all relevant to what Addie would see as an important part of our society,” he said. “Organizations like Why Not City Missions are often stepping up to fill a need, right? And you’ve got Ladies Who Lead who are also stepping up to fill a need and so all of those things are important and they deserve a little bit of a plug for what they do and how they do it because they’re very important.
Overall, Ball said he was happy with the play and how the Brant Theatre Workshops’ actors were able to bring the story to life.
“The cast is doing such a marvelous job, they really are and I can’t say enough about them. We went through a few rewrites and so on and so forth, and the cast was just awesome,” he said. “They’re really, really great, and Peter Muir’s done a great job working with them. I couldn’t be happier with the way the production has turned out.”
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
