The Full Monty, Mayfield Dinner Theatre. Poster image supplied.

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

Kick off your Sunday shoes. It’s a big week at the Mayfield.

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For one thing, the theatre’s 50th anniversary season continues with a Broadway musical hit, blue of collar, warm of heart. The Full Monty, opening Friday with the largest cast (17 actors) of the season, is a classic underdog triumph story: a group of unemployed steelworkers in Buffalo take charge of their failing fortunes and dwindling self-esteem — by creating a strip act. It’s the first show that musical theatre veteran Kate Ryan, whose Mayfield experiences date back 35 years, directs in her new gig as the theatre’s interim artistic director. And it was last staged at the Mayfield 17 years ago by Ryan’s father Tim Ryan.

For another, Ryan announced the lineup of shows she’s picked for the  upcoming 2025-2026 Mayfield season. As befits a theatre company that, as Ryan says, prides itself on “great music and high-quality musical experiences,” — a focus she intends to continue — it includes a much-requested classic Broadway musical with the catchiest of songs, a rockin’ holiday compilation show, a celebration of a seminal musical artist. And the season finale, in the summer of 2026, is a Canadian comedy with a quintessentially Canuck setting, a curling rink.

The whole point of Footloose, the celebratory 1998 Broadway musical based on the 1984 movie, is song and dance, a perennial Mayfield mantra. “High energy, contagious music — the tunes are visceral! — and such a relatable story,” says Ryan, who has taken her cue on all of the above from the production of Grease she directed a season ago, “one of the Mayfield’s highest grossing shows ever.”

Dean Pritchard, of Fame fame is the writer. And Footloose, as Ryan describes, is “smart, funny, with a score that combines top-40 hits (like Holding Out For A Hero) and original music (by Tom Snow, Kenny Loggins and others). “The story of the city kid who moves to a small town and fights for the right to dance  — how timely is that? — is all about how music can bring communities together.” The Mayfield production runs April 14 to June 14.

The season opens in the fall (Sept. 2 to Nov. 2) with Dean Elliott’s much-travelled The Simon & Garfunkel Story, which tells the story of the world’s most successful musical duo with the distinctive sound — formerly ‘Tom and Gerry’ when they were in high school in New York City. “Much more than a tribute show,” as Ryan describes, the production includes video design, old photos, and film footage, not to mention a full live band. And the hit-studded song list — Mrs. Robinson, The Sound of Silence, Bridge Over Troubled Water, Cecilia — is one that, as she puts it, connects you to your memories, “songs that really influenced, and moved, us.” Brit-based Elliott himself, who starred in Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story when it played the Mayfield, comes to direct the show.

The holiday show, the longest-running show of the season and traditionally a Mayfield audience fave, is devoted to the ‘90s  — its music, its aesthetic, its cultural trends. The ‘90s! It’s All Coming Back To Me Now (Nov. 11, 2025 to Jan. 25, 2026) is written and curated by the husband-and-wife team of Kevin Dabbs  and Christine Bandelow, the former an actor/musician himself and the latter an actor/choreographer of note who have extensive Mayfield experience on their resumés.

They mine the decade of the Spice Girls and the Backstreet Boys, Céline Dion, the Tragically Hip, Sheryl Crow, Bryan Adams, Alanis, Shania…. for this new show. The co-creators have a lot to work with. “Music videos were the new ‘90s trend,” as Ryan says. “What effect did they have? And hit songs in films?”

Following upon the huge response to last season’s One Night With The King, starring Matt Cage as Elvis, Dabbs and Bandelow have have created a new show for the multi-talented tribute artist/actor. One Night With Roy Orbison (Feb. 3 to April 5, 2026), starring Cage, is designed to celebrate the work of the influential musical artist with the unmistakeable voice, and showcase his musical journey from his rock and roll beginnings in the 50s to the 60s hits like Pretty Woman, Blue Bayou, and Only the Lonely, including his participation in the super-star fantasy band The Travelling Wilburys and his celebrated duet Crying with k.d. lang.

Hurry Hard, the season finale, Jun 23 to July 26, 2026, takes us to a curling rink and the long-standing friction between the men’s and the women’s team at the Stayner Curling Club. When a crisis occurs, only burying the hatchet and coming together as one team will secure the trophy at the bonspiel. “Smart fun writing and great characters,” says Ryan, who “laughed aloud” when she read the five-actor comedy by the Ontario-based Canadian actor/playwright Kristen Da Silva. “I enjoyed her skill as a writer, her fast-paced wit and relatable characters. She puts them in high-stress situations and lets them muddle in the mud…. She allows us to laugh at challenging life circumstances.”

Although she’s both directed and acted at the Mayfield since 1991, the artistic directorship of a commercial company in a hotel, in a big theatre with a tricky stage, and dinner!, has been a learning curve, says Ryan, the founding artistic director of the indie musical theatre company Plain Jane. Because the “entertainment experience” at the Mayfield includes dinner, the audience tends to lean back from the show, not into it, she’s found. “And you don’t want to push with a (straight) play.” So for last last summer’s popular Mayfield production of On Golden Pond, experimenting with mic-ing the actors created greater intimacy, and “made for more nuanced moments.”    

Season 50 continues with The Full Monty (through March 30), Jersey Boys, another blue-collar Broadway hit, April 8 to June 8, and a summer show, the perennial solo fave Shirley Valentine June 17 to July 20. Meanwhile, Meanwhile, Ryan is immersed in The Full Monty, music and lyrics by David Yazbek (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Band’s Visit, Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown) and book by the star American playwright Terrence McNally. “The scenes aren’t numbered in the script,” Ryan says. “It’s the wildest thing, so filmic; it flows from one to the next as ‘transitions’…. We’ve created a template, our own little scene breakdowns.”

“I love the characters. They’re lovable jerks and we lean into their flaws,” she says happily.

Tickets and 2025-2026 season subscriptions: 780-483-4051, mayfieldtheatre.ca.