Dennis Garnhum News

'Despite our great hope and best efforts, the Omicron variant has proved to be far too transmissible and pervasive for us to safely move forward, as intended, with our incredible season. However, as colleagues across our country are doing, we have rebounded and re-strategized to create a plan that we believe will mitigate a lengthy pause from theatre in London and provides a better degree of job security for our valued artists and staff.”

As the familiar adage goes, “there’s no place like home for the holidays.” And this holiday season, this joyous saying rings especially true as London’s Grand Theatre debuts its original holiday spectacular, Home for the Holidays.

Following a successful four-week engagement that played to intimate audience sizes, the Grand Theatre is thrilled to launch digital versions of the Grand Re:Opening Festival  at no cost to online audiences – beginning at 5 p.m. on November 18, 2021.

The 35th High School Project production – The Great Grand Road Trip will celebrate its opening night tonight with a video viewing party in the Spriet Stage for student participants, Board, sponsors, staff and special guests.

Anita Shah, the President of the Board of Directors of the Grand Theatre, announced today that Deb Harvey, will be stepping down as Executive Director of the theatre following the end of the 2021/22 Season.

In this final week of Black History Month, the Grand Theatre is publicly acknowledging the need within the theatre community to dismantle the systemic racism and oppressive history of which they have been a part.

Musical theatre lovers worldwide are invited to tune in for the debut of a brand new music video for “Grow”, the title song from the highly-anticipated original Canadian musical, premiering as of 9 AM EST December 17, 2020.

At the 2019/20 Annual General Meeting held today, Deb Harvey, Executive Director, announced an operating deficit of $65,348 for the 2019/20 season. This announcement marks the Grand’s first deficit in 21 years, and comes as a direct result of COVID-19 and the mandated shutdown of the theatre on March 13, 2020.

On the eve of what would have been the Opening of the Grand's 50th season as a professional theatre company, today the Grand announced some of the talented artists that will be featured as part of its virtual Un-Opening Night Celebration. This one-hour event will be streamed live from 7-8 PM on Thursday, October 22 and is offered at no cost.

An hour long, Season a??Un-Openinga?? virtual celebration scheduled for October 22 at 7 PM anchors a series of Fall events during the GRAND Intermission period of shutdown.

Today, the Grand Theatre announced that the season scheduled to commence in October 2020 will be postponed until the fall of 2021.

As a result of COVID-19, the Grand Theatre made some dramatic programming announcements today.

The Grand Theatre has announced its 2020/2021 Season. Running from September 2020 to May 2021, it is a season that includes a grand re-opening of refreshed and updated lobby spaces, performances in ten venues that span both our city and the country, partnerships with Neptune Theatre and Shaw Festival, and the return of a record-breaking, made-in-London production. It will be a season of what Artistic Director Dennis Garnhum describes as a?oea highly-eclectic journey to unexpected and unexplored territory. The Grand will be in ten different venues across the country. You will see us in places you would never expecta?"from a circus tent, to a coffee shop, from intimate studio theatres, to the largest national stagesa?"it is a season of bold and exciting theatre that we are proud to present.a??

Coming to the Grand Theatre's Spriet Stage this February is award-winning playwright Tara Beagan's Honour Beat-an honest and touching story of two sisters who come together by their mother's side as she faces the end of her life. It is in these moments of togetherness where they confront their relationship with each other and with their mother, and show us that although the impending passing of a loved-one can be a time fraught with complications and sadness, those final days with our loved ones can also be filled with laughter amid the tears. Proud title sponsor for Honour Beat is W4W (Women for Women).

The Grand Theatre has announced a cross-Canada tour of its production of Cabaret in 2020-21.

Alberta Theatre Projects has announced their 49th season line-up, which will run from September 2020 to May 2021. The season will feature a made-in-Calgary world premiere, a ground-breaking Shakespeare adaptation, two hit Canadian plays, a high-flying family adventure, and a gritty, immersive music theatre masterpiece, and four different seating configurations.

The Grand Theatre has announced that Grow, a musical in development through their COMPASS New Play Development program, has been chosen to participate in the esteemed Goodspeed Festival of New Musicals to be held January 17-19th, 2020 in East Haddam, Connecticut. With only three new musicals included in the program, this announcement marks an incredible opportunity for the Grand, and also for the future of new, Canadian theatre. The Festival, which will be celebrating its 15th anniversary in 2020, features students from the Hartt School and the Boston Conservatory performing staged readings of three brand new musicals, along with industry-related seminars, a symposium, and cabaret performances.

The holiday season is a time for magic and imagination-to see the world with childlike wonder. And what better way to ring in the holiday season than to take in the Grand Theatre's production of Disney and Cameron Mackintosh's Mary Poppins, which flies onto the Spriet Stage, November 26th-December 29th. As P.L. Travers' classic novel comes to life in a stunning visual and musical celebration, audiences of all ages will delight in the timeless story of a family who has lost their way, and is brought back to life through the wisdom and guidance of their mystically lovable nanny.

Anyone who hails from London, Ontario and has travelled anywhere in the world, has undoubtedly uttered the phrase, a?oeno, not that London, the other one, in Canada.a??

Artistic Director Dennis Garnhum has announced principal casting for the 2019/20 season including Deborah Hay and Mark Uhre in Disney and Cameron Mackintosh's MARY POPPINS, Gavin Crawford, who takes on all 40 roles in the hilarious FULLY COMMITTED, Rebecca Northan in EVERY BRILLIANT THING and THIS LONDON LIFE, and Alexis Gordon starring as Ma in the North American premiere in ROOM, based on the award-winning novel by Emma Donoghue.