Little Red Riding Hood, the Big Bad Wolf and many more of your nursery rhyme favourites will be on stage at the Berwick Royal Oak Theatre this holiday season.
The Peninsula Players have put together a panto, Little Red and the Wolf, that they will bring to the Berwick stage Dec. 16 to 18.
“It’s a takeoff on Little Red Riding Hood. There’s lots of great characters, like the wolf and the three little pigs, the woman who lived in a shoe,” said Glen Brown, the show’s producer.
“There’s lots of dancing, the costumes are fantastic. It’s very visually stimulating.”
The show follows Little Red and Granny Hood as they and the other residents fight back against the Ogre and his family, who are the landlords for the area and are trying to evict families from their homes, with the help of the rent collector The Big Bad Wolf.
As in all pantos, the dame is played by a man, this time with Rob Friesen in the role of Granny Hood.
“He’s a very seasoned veteran actor. He played Basil Fawlty for us when we did Fawlty Towers,” said Brown.
And as in other pantos, the audience is also an integral part of the performance.
“The characters will go down into the audience and we encourage the kids in the audience to really get involved and have a great time,” said Brown. “The normal sitting still in a theatre doesn’t apply to a panto.”
Brown also singled out the work of costume designer Anna Lorenz.
“Just seeing the costumes is worth the price of admission alone,” he said, adding hundreds of hours of work takes place behind the scenes before the curtain rises on the performance.
“The crew behind the scenes is just unbelievable. We’re really proud of this production.”
The performance will be at the Berwick Royal Oak Theatre, 4680 Elk Lake Drive, Dec. 16 at 7 p.m., with 2 p.m. matinees on Dec. 17 and 18. Tickets are $16.80 for seniors and children, $21 for adults, and are available at the door, Dig This in Broadmead Village, or online at Tickets.MaryWinspear.ca.