Editor’s Note: Upper Canada Playhouse in Morrisburg is an easy drive from Montreal, and the afternoon weekday performances are popular with our readers.

Upper Canada Playhouse’s popular summer season continues July 27 through August 13 with a fast-paced comedy about the joys and challenges of maintaining the family farm. Buying the Farm, by Shelley Hoffman and Stephen Sparks, is an entertaining and insightful look at the realities of Canadian rural life.

In fact, the inspiration for the play came from the playwrights’ family farming roots going back generations and their experience as actors working at theatres located in farming communities like Morrisburg’s Upper Canada Playhouse. Buying the Farm’s popularity with rural audiences began with a production of the play at Thunder Bay’s Magnus Theatre and went on to a 24-community tour of Manitoba and Northern Ontario. It’s also been a hit at theatres all over the country.

‘We’re excited to mount our own production of the play right here at The Playhouse in Morrisburg where the realities of farm life are ever present in the many rural communities surrounding our theatre’, remarked director Donnie Bowes. ‘We always look for plays that are entertaining, offer different kinds of comedy, tell engaging stories and speak to the lives of our audience. Buying the Farm does that in spades.’

Magnus is a sixty-something bachelor who has worked the family farm all his life. But times are tougher now as mounting debt, age, health issues and urban sprawl threaten his way of life. The temptation to sell is ever present and fighting off aggressive realtors is a constant battle. In Buying the Farm, Brad, a young real estate agent, arrives on the scene determined to close a deal with Magnus to sell his property and make way for a huge housing development. But he faces a tough sell from the farmer’s great niece, Esme, a determined young woman who left college to help with the farming chores. Life on the farm becomes livelier than it’s been in years as the stand-off begins!

Buying the Farm features veteran actor Brian Young as Magnus. Young has had a busy career at theatres across the country and starred in many Playhouse productions including Sugar Road, Last of the Red Hot Lovers, Miracle on 34th Street and Boeing Boeing to name a few. He shares the stage with Adam Sanders who was seen last season in The Playhouse’s popular production of A Christmas Carol. Sanders also recently starred in the new musical Grow at London’s Grand Theatre. New to the Playhouse stage is Erin Eldershaw who has appeared with such theatres as Ottawa’s Odyssey Theatre and can be seen in tv’s Murdoch Mysteries. The production is designed by John Thompson who has created set designs for such productions as On Golden Pond and Having Hope at Home to name a few.

The Playhouse is excited to share the success of this Canadian comedy with its audience and to continue to offer patrons a variety of theatre productions in its season. Do they sell or don’t they? Visit this family farm and find out!

Buying the Farm plays July 27-August 13 with 2:00pm shows Tue/Wed/Thur/Sat/Sun and 7:30pm shows Thu/Fri/Sat.  Box Office at: 613-543-3713; 877-550-3650 or uppercanadaplayhouse.com

Cutline: 13_1) Adam Sanders, Brian Young and Erin Eldershaw in Buying The Farm

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