The New Canadian Curling Club launches in Port Dover
- Chris Abbott
- May 21
- 3 min read
Chris Abbott
Editor
Directed by Jane Spence, Artistic Director at Lighthouse Festival, ‘The New Canadian Curling Club’ by Mark Crawford is described as a heartwarming and hilarious story of overcoming adversity, friendship, inclusion… and curling.
Playing in Port Dover May 21 - June 7 at the Lighthouse Festival Theatre, and in Port Colborne June 11 – June 22, tickets are available through their website at lighthousetheatre.com.
The cast includes Andrew Prashad (Anoopjeet Singh), Chiamaka Glory (Charmaine Bailey), Frank Chung (Mike Chang), John Jarvis (Stuart McPhail), and Mahsa Ershadifar (Fatima Al-Sayed).
No curling experience is required from the audience. The play focuses on a team that is taking Learn to Curl classes, so the audience can learn some of the mechanics and jargon of the sport along with the cast.
“We had a very generous curling club offer us some of the equipment and gave us a little lesson on the ice,” said Spence, recalling pre-show training from a previous run in the Orangeville area for Prashad, Glory and Jarvis.
“We got a little bit of time on the curling rink to learn some basics,” said Prashad. “I have seen curling, but I’ve never played… so to experience the mechanics – in real life – informs how we approach the curling on our fake ice.”
Spoiler - it is fake ice on the Lighthouse stage, although the red-and-blue painted curling ‘house’ certainly looks real enough – and it is slippery like real ice.
“This time, the Simcoe Curling Club has generously donated a lot of our props,” Spence noted. “And Bruce Robinson, a member of the club who also works for Lighthouse, gave us a little curling tune-up.”
Chung, new to The New Canadian Curling Club cast, had some experience on the ice, while Ershadifar, also new to the production, did not.
“She (Ershadifar) was practicing furiously last night (May 13),” said Spence. “We gave her some ice time to kind of catch up.”
“It is a little bit slippery,” Ershadifar smiled. “Before coming here, I didn’t have any experience learning curling, I had to look online for it. They keep telling me about how to do it on the ice… but this (set) is not the actual space. It’s very similar – I bet it is, I don’t know – but what is hard is trying to do something that resembles real curling on something that is not the real surface. It was really fun.”
“We’ve been learning all different levels (of curling) and different advantages,” said Glory. “Some curl with a lot of weight, some curl with light weight. Some of us have natural leadership talents…”
“The play starts with them never having curled before,” said Spence.
“The little gang that couldn’t,” Jarvis quipped.
“The only person (with curling experience) is the person who takes care of the ice, John,” said Spence. “He is the expert.”
“Really, I’m not by nature the teacher that should be conducting the Learn to Curl, but the man who (makes) the ice who is going to learn himself how to teach a team and try to communicate with four new players, and teach them the sport… with his own complex nature often getting in front of him,” said Jarvis.
“With the caveat that he was traumatized at a certain point in his life and has not curled in 20 years. So that is an important ingredient with what he is struggling with.”
The play deals with Stuart McPhail’s ‘strong opinions about immigrants…’ and prejudice.
“I believe that Mark (Crawford) has done a beautiful job treating it with heart and with humour, and giving a lot of different perspectives about the same moment, and that’s kind of the brilliance of his writing – I don’t believe that it ever feels like a lecture,” said Spence.
“I think you get to witness a very human experience, and the journey that this group goes through – overcoming some of that adversity and bridging gaps that need to be bridged.”
While the majority of the audience does not typically have curling experience, curlers are very appreciative of shared ‘learn to curl’ moments, said Spence.
Set designer is Beckie Morris; costume designer is Alex Amini; lighting designer is Steve Lucas; stage manager is Laura Grandfield; and Kate Hunter is apprentice stage manager.
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