4th Line Theatre Announces Two Productions For Its 2024 Summer Lineup
/4th Line Theatre has announced its 32nd summer season and two premiere productions ‘Onion Skins & Peach Fuzz: The Farmerettes’ and ‘Jim Watts: Girl Reporter’ on Monday morning.
Onion Skins & Peach Fuzz: The Farmerettes was written by Alison Lawrence (pictured). Photo courtesy of 4th Line Theatre.
The season will begin on July 1 with Onion Skins & Peach Fuzz: The Farmerettes, written by Alison Lawrence, based on the book by Shirleyan English and Bonnie Sitter and directed by Autumn Smith, who returns after appearing in the 2023 production of The Cavan Blazers.
Beginning on July 30, Jim Watts: Girl Reporter, written by Beverley Cooper and directed by Kim Blackwell, will take the stage. Cooper wrote The Other: A Strange Christmas Tale for 4th Line, which had a sold-out run in December 2018.
“In our 2024 season, I am proud to share these two plays with audiences,” explained Blackwell, 4th Line’s managing artistic director “These world premiere productions have been developed through our new play development program.”
Longtime Musical Director Justin Hiscox returns to write original music, compose and musically direct for the summer season. Hiscox returns in 2024 for his 24th season after surviving a life-threatening illness this past summer.
Onion Skins & Peach Fuzz: The Farmerettes is a funny and enlightening exploration of the largely unknown story of the teenage girls who stepped up and worked on farms across Canada to feed the troops and all Canadians during WWII. These ‘Farmerettes,’ all in their 90s now, tell us that the summers they worked on those farms were the best of their lives, even 70 or more years later.
Jim Watts: Girl Reporter is a fascinating exploration of the experience of trailblazing youth who illegally flocked to Spain to fight fascism, attempting to stop its march across Europe in the mid-1930s. Jean ‘Jim’ Watts was the only woman to join Canada’s regiment in Spain, the MacKenzie-Papineaus. The play takes us from Toronto to Madrid, from political rallies to the battlefields of Spain—and Peterborough’s own Jim Higgins — union organizer and hero — figures prominently in the story.
“Both of the plays focus on young people who are willing to do just about anything to do their part,” explains Blackwell. “These young people were desperate to try and make a difference in a world gone mad. They were all true heroes.”
Onion Skins & Peach Fuzz: The Farmerettes
Directed by Autumn Smith
July 1 – 20, 2024
Previews: July 1, 2
Opening Night: July 3
Monday to Saturday at 6 p.m.
Jim Watts: Girl Reporter
July 30 – August 24, 2024
Previews: July 30, 31
Opening Night: August 1
Tuesday to Saturday at 6 p.m.
