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Vagabond Players open New West theatre season with Terror by Gaslight

The Vagabond Players is opening the season with a production that’s being described as “fabulously sinister.” The theatre company is staging Tim Kelly’s Terror by Gaslight , onstage at the Bernie Legge Theatre Oct. 5 to 26.

The Vagabond Players is opening the season with a production that’s being described as “fabulously sinister.”

The theatre company is staging Tim Kelly’s Terror by Gaslight, onstage at the Bernie Legge Theatre Oct. 5 to 26.

The play is set in 19th-century Philadelphia, where Dr. Cyrus Norton, a brilliant but eccentric surgeon, is creating a museum to further his standing as a recognized expert on anatomy and dissection. He needs cadavers, and since those can only be obtained from the public gallows, he is forced to deal with grave robbers and body-snatchers.

But soon, suspicion falls on Dr. Norton and his household, and chills mount as the persistent police detective assigned to the case moves nearer to learning the truth about the increasingly vicious murders that have been engendered by the doctor’s obsession.

Kurtis Maguire stars as Dr. Norton, and Sarah Prato plays Marilyn, his devoted daughter who wants to follow in her father’s footsteps. Kathryn Ferguson takes the role of Dr. Norton’s prim and proper spinster sister, Constance, while Sean Mawhinney plays William Dover, the promising new surgeon and eager assistant who has fallen in love with Norton’s daughter. The household is completed by Kelsey Robertson as Opal, the maid.

Helen Volkow and Ryan Johnson play the two repugnant grave robbers, and Jim Mainguy plays the police detective. The cast is rounded out by Bob Lepine as Dr. Withers, colleague and mentor to Dr. Norton; Alex Ross as Edward Daniels, the doctor’s devious former student; Bev Pride as Mrs. Culp, the grieving widow who believes Dr. Norton has her husband’s body; and Elizabeth Drummond as Kitty, the barmaid who knows too much. 

It's directed by Dale Kelly.

The show runs Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m., with Sunday matinees at 2 p.m.

The Bernie Legge Theatre is in Queen’s Park. Tickets for the production are $17, or $15 for seniors and youth, with $12 previews on Oct. 3 and 4. See www.vagabondplayers.ca/tickets or call 604-521-0412.