What's New

Sugar Road

Can Sugar Road be saved? Can lost love be rekindled? Reviewed by Sandi Laird & Tori Laird One thing we love about Port Stanley Festival Theatre is the proximity of the audience to the stage and actors. It’s up close and heartening. As the scene opens at Sugar Road, an amusement park in small town Ontario, you feel invested. Kudos for this set design go to Eric Bunnell. Hannah and her somewhat nutty friend Caroline are preparing for a big event – the Spurs & Hearts Festival is coming to Sugar Road with headliner Jesse Emberley. The town is excited, Caroline is ecstatic, but Hannah, who knows this festival will provide a much-needed infusion of cash into the struggling Sugar Road, clearly has reservations. It seems Hannah has a secret. As the story moves forward, we learn more about the sadness, disappointment and fear that keeps Hannah tethered to Sugar Road. She receives support from the amusement park handyman Ray and best pal Caroline but keeps her true feelings close to the vest. The performances of Sarah Machin Gale, a veteran at PSFT, as Caroline, and Scott Maudsley as Ray stand out. Gale’s Caroline is loud and hilarious and gets the best lines.  Her physical comedic abilities are amazing. The scene in the sleeping bag is awesome.  Maudsley’s Ray is patient and understanding – a friend we all would want. He really comes into his own in the second act as we move towards the unravelling of the secret all the characters want – a longing to be loved for Caroline and Ray, and the rekindling of past love for Hannah and Jesse. The music – performed by actor Mayson Sonntag – sets the tone for the bittersweet, nostalgic ache felt by MacKinnon as Hannah and Sonntag as Jesse. Their ...
Read More →

Mary's Musings

Karen Coughlin-Melo AKA Linda Ronstadt!

Great to see Karen on stage! By Mary Alderson, June 14, 2026 It was a delight to see the beautiful and very talented Karen Coughlin-Melo in a tribute concert as Linda Ronstadt last week. We used to see Karen on a regular basis, starting in 2005, when she had a lead role in a cute little musical called Suds. Suds was presented at the Hiawatha Horse Park near Sarnia. At the time it was touted to be a future location for musical theatre, but I think Suds was the only show presented there. The next time we saw Karen on stage was also in 2005, when she starred as Belle in Beauty and the Beast at Huron Country Playhouse in Grand Bend. She performed the same role the next year at the Grand Theatre in London. She sang all the Belle songs beautifully. Also in 2006, she played Patsy Cline in the musical A Closer Walk with Patsy Cline at Victoria Playhouse in Petrolia, where she wowed the audience with her country sound.  In 2007, she was the beloved Miss Stacey, the school teacher, in Anne of Green Gables at the Grand Theatre.  Her clear, bell-like voice was perfect for the role of everyone’s favourite teacher. In 2010, she was back at Huron Country Playhouse as part of the Country Legends show, where Karen again sang some Patsy Cline favourites, among others. Later in 2010, she played the prim and proper Sarah Brown, the Salvation-Army-type woman, in the hit musical Guys and Dolls at Drayton Theatre. To finish off 2010, Karen was the Narrator in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat at the Grand Theatre in London.  Here’s what I had to say about Karen in my review: “Karen Coughlin is incredibly good as the Narrator. Her voice is in ...
Read More →

NEWSLETTER

Sign up here if you would like to receive notice when news, reviews, and musings are posted. You can unsubscribe at any time.