Who doesn’t need a laugh after a long, dark winter season — even one that’s been as kind and mild as possible for us, weather-wise?
Salt Spring Community Theatre (SSCT) has just the thing to blast away any late-winter blues with its upcoming production of Drinking Habits, a farce written by American playwright Tom Smith in 2004 that won the Robert J. Pickering Award for Playwriting Excellence.
“I guarantee that even the most curmudgeonly cranky person will laugh,” said SSCT Drinking Habits director Suzanne Rouger. “I mean, it is so funny. I just hope people are walking out of the hall with their faces hurting because they’ve laughed so much.”
Drinking Habits runs at Mahon Hall on Friday-Saturday, Feb. 20-21 at 7 p.m., and Sunday, Feb. 22 at 2 p.m. It finishes with three 7 p.m. shows on Feb. 26, 27 and 28. The local BCSPCA branch will be selling concession goodies.
Set in the early ‘60s, Drinking Habits revolves around the Sisters of Perpetual Sewing convent where two nuns have been making award-winning wine in secret to keep the convent open and financially viable. After one of their bottles wins a huge contest prize, two reporters go undercover to decipher the mystery of who is making the wine.
“The reporters go to the convent and they’re snooping around, and then they end up having to hide, and then there are all these mistaken identities because they’re disguising themselves,” said Rouger. “So it’s very silly, and it’s very fun. It’s a lot of fast talking and silliness, lots of doors opening and closing . . . .”
Drinking Habits is a play Rouger had come across and wanted to do years ago in the community theatre part of her directing career, but just never got the opportunity. Then last year local actor Wendy Beatty asked Rouger if she would consider directing it as the first SSCT production undertaken since 2019.
The request seemed serendipitous and especially because Rouger had time to take it on since Christmas With Scrooge did not run this year and her next original show won’t be stage-ready until late 2027. (Rouger is known locally for original Good Company Entertainment Group musical shows like The Venus Conundrum, Dogs in the Moonlight, Time Piece and Peter on the Brink.)
Cast members familiar to islanders for their participation in any number of past shows are Chantal Pentland, Rosita Larrain, Megan Colgan, Stewart Katz, Wyatt Floerke and Tangle Caron, while Inge Remesz and Roy Val Clery were first seen in Hereafter: A Cabaret of Divine Love at ArtSpring last year.
Pentland, who plays the somewhat meek Sister Philomena, said it’s a terrific and extremely funny play.
“Everybody should come because it’s really fun and special, and it’s important to keep that alive in the community, because it’s such a wonderful thing.”
She and Rouger stress that despite the play’s convent setting, no one should be offended by the subject material.
Maggie O’Scalleigh is the show’s co-producer, MacKenzie Williamson is stage manager, Al Lehmann is doing lights, Sue Lehmann sound, Maureen McKay is in charge of costumes, and Lisa Black the props. Al Lehmann, Williamson and Rouger brainstormed the set.
“Al is building the set with help from MacKenzie and myself,” said Rouger. “It’s community theatre!”
“We’re all rolling up our sleeves,” added Pentland, who was eager to become part of the island’s theatre scene when she and her family moved to Salt Spring from Vancouver five years ago.
Rouger said she “discovered” Pentland at a Moby’s karaoke night, and then invited her to be part of The Venus Conundrum musical. She was also in the production of The Mousetrap directed by Rouger last year.
Advance tickets are for sale at Mondo Trading Company and at the door, if available.