Arts and Entertainment

New Norm Foster play to feature David Nairn this fall at Theatre Orangeville

May 15, 2025   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

This weekend offers the last chance to get tickets for “I’m In Love With Your Sister” by Norm Foster, except for Sunday’s matinee, which has been sold out almost since the play opened. Everyone loves Norm Foster’s plays and he has been a mainstay for the entire time of David Nairn’s very fine 26 years as artistic director (AD) of Theatre Orangeville (TOV)

During his tenure as AD, since 1999: Nairn programmed 26 Foster shows, of which three were musicals and 11 were World Premieres.

In September, TOV will open its 2025/26 season with Norm Foster in a special, called “The Norm Effect.” Running across the extended weekend of Sept. 17 to Sept. 21, three Foster plays will be produced but read as scripts on stage by Foster himself along with other actors, including David Nairn. The first two are “On a First Name Basis” and “The Writer,” which was slated to be produced at TOV but was shut down due to COVID-19. Subsequently, the timing never quite worked for The Writer to be presented at the theatre until now.

The third of the three readings is “Jonas and Barry in the Home.” Foster penned this play for himself and Nairn, and they toured with it, racking up an impressive 206 performances, of which Erin MacKinnon joined them in the role of Barry’s daughter, Rosie, for over 140 of those shows. 

The Citizen had the opportunity to sit down with Foster and Nairn as a Zoom get-together, since Norm Foster lives in Fredericton, N.B. He had accepted the invitation to come to Orangeville for the three-play “Norm Effect” because “it sounds like fun,” as he said.

A stage reading with familiar actors – old friends really – is appealing. Foster has retired from acting as such but with a script at hand makes it easy to be back in the theatre entertaining audiences.

Between the two of them was remembered that Foster did Jonas and Barry in March 2016 and later in May 2016 he acted in “Mending Fences.” Those were his last appearances on stage here, although he has frequently come to Orangeville to enjoy the opening nights of his plays. 

Sheila McCarthy will read “On a First Name Basis” with Foster. David Nairn told us that he and McCarthy went to high school together.

“We did a couple of shows. She was a dancer but she just fell in love with acting.” he recalled.

McCarthy is the winner of several awards as an actor, right across the performance spectrum.

One of Foster’s particular talents is his ability to capture the voice and conversation of women. Following the tremendous success of his play, “The Foursome,” a play about four men, old school chums getting together over 18 holes on a golf course, he was urged to write “The Ladies Foursome.”

With a very similar pattern and basic plot, the four ladies get together after some years to gossip, confess and laugh between the drives and the putts. Both plays were widely acclaimed but the women’s version was hailed for its clever and very perceptive delivery of how women talk to each other.

We asked him for his secret.

“I love writing for women,” Foster replied. “It’s interesting, different. Writing for women is more of a challenge. Concentrated maybe a little. The Ladies Foursome, there were a couple similar scenes but it was a whole different ball of wax. It was similar with ‘Doris and Ivy In The Home,’ ‘The Love List,’ ‘On A First Name Basis’…”

Foster is happy with his life’s success in the business of writing very funny, interesting and thoughtful plays. He is the most-produced playwright in Canada and the only living playwright with an ongoing theatre festival in his name: The Foster Festival in St. Catherines, Ont.

He told us he will keep on writing, saying, “As long as I make them good enough so people still want to do them. I have written 79, including a few musicals and a one-act play.

“I don’t look at what’s being done elsewhere, only not to repeat what has been written down. I am a member of the Playwrights Guild.”

Years ago, a flurry of would-be Foster playwrights were sending their manuscripts to David Nairn, declaring them, “exactly as good as Norm Foster,” presuming a formula to Foster scripts was based on production cost: a box set and two to four characters. Nairn found them definitely nothing like the brilliance of a Foster play.

“There is no such thing as a typical Norm Foster play,” said Nairn. 

Every opportunity to learn told a story. When Foster came to act in On A First Name Basis, there was an opportunity for him to have comfortable accommodation at the Chartwell Montgomery Village residence for seniors.

While there, he told us, “I took advantage of being there – that was where I did my research for Jonas and Barry.”

Up next for Foster is a trip to the Bahamas to see his new play “The Ingenue” produced in a theatre there.

As a matter of interest, Nairn informed us that once a year, the Playwrights Guild counts up how many plays written by Canadian playwrights have been produced across the country; they have to discount Foster’s numbers because of how they skew the numbers.

As for this very exciting prospect of The Norm Effect coming up in September, our much-loved playwright is pleased too, “It’ll be my first time acting for a long time. These are my best plays.”

“When we talked about it,” said Foster. “We’re working with good people.”

The three-date presentation can be sold as a package.

For all the details and to purchase tickets and subscriptions, go to theatreorangeville.ca or call the delightful folk at the Box Office (87 Broadway) at 519-938-7584.

Tickets can also be bought in-person at the Box Office during its hours of operation.

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