Theatre on the Ridge presents MINE! Culture Days Scugog Shores Museum 2025

Theatre on the Ridge is very excited to bring:
“MINE! True Stories and Legends of the Porcupine Gold Rush”
by: Will Gillespie
Coming Fall 2025
(September 19th at 7pm & September 20th at 4pm)

Theatre on the Ridge is very excited to bring:
“MINE! True Stories and Legends of the Porcupine Gold Rush“
to Durham Region this summer and fall before the show heads out on a Northern Ontario Tour in October.
“MINE!” will be onstage: September 19 & 20 under the Theatre on the Ridge tent at Scugog Shores Museum to kick off Ontario Culture Days.

They will be performing a “Campfire Cabaret” version of the show: A song-filled, multimedia storytelling experience. Featuring a live onstage pit-band of Durham Region acoustic musicians including Troy Williams on mandolin, Adam Till on banjo and Jonathan Sloan on upright bass.

Will Gillespie, the host and narrator/raconteur/troubadour recounts harrowing, real-life tales of adventure and perseverance from a lost world of prospectors, pioneers, bootlegger-bandits, highgraders, dog-
sledders and moonshiners!

Celebrating the lives of the unsung heroes behind the legends of the Porcupine Gold Rush of 1909 in song.
Will researched and created this show thanks to the support of the Ontario Arts Council.
Reserve your seat details coming soon!

There are many famous stories from the Klondike Gold Rush in the Yukon and the California Gold Rush of 1849. Another even bigger gold rush happened right here in Ontario, up North in the Porcupine Camp!
“MINE! True Stories and Legends of the Porcupine Gold Rush” is a 12-story song cycle that digs deeper into that forgotten chapter of Canadian history.

MINE! is new, original Old-time Music. Written in historically-inspired styles from Bluegrass to Ragtime, Music Hall, Barrelhouse Blues, Polka, Waltzes and MORE! This immersive musical storytelling experience also features background projections of original Northern Ontario landscape paintings by Durham Region visual Artist Susan Robinson and historical photos from
the collection at the Timmins Museum National Exhibition Centre of the real people, places and events Will is singing about.

Singer-Songwriter Will Gillespie was raised in the small gold mining town of South Porcupine, Northern Ontario. This show was inspired by and created as an homage to Will’s grandparents Annie McEwen Gillespie, who was a talented stride Jazz and Ragtime pianist in her day (and Will’s first Music teacher), and her husband William “Wully” Gillespie, a Scottish immigrant gold miner, (who Will was named after). The hard-hat Will wears in the show was worn underground at the Hollinger and Dome Mines in Timmins and South Porcupine by Grampa Wully in the 1940s and 50s and still bears scratches on it from the Canadian Shield.

Will researched and created this show thanks to the support of the Ontario Arts Council. MINE! began its life as a 60-minute solo show, debuting at the Hamilton Fringe Festival in 2022. Since then it has evolved into a full-length concept album available on CD and vinyl LP.

Coming Show Dates: September 19th at 7pm and September 20th at 4pm.

Will Gillespie will be performing this show at Theatre on the Ridge to kick off Ontario Culture Days. Then later in October, also during Culture Days, he will be performing these songs solo across Northern Ontario on an 11-day, 11-city tour from Sault Ste Marie to Timmins called “Will Gillespie & Brian Tremblay: 2 Northern Troubadours – Songs & Stories of Northern Ontario” performing alongside fellow Singer-Songwriter and fellow Northerner Brian Tremblay, who will be performing songs from his own Northern Ontario History themed concept album “In the Tracks of the Black Bear” about the Algoma Rail Line out of Sault Ste, Marie.

Purchase Tickets at LINK https://theatreontheridge.thundertix.com/events/252933?only_one=true
Group Sale Tickets at LINK https://theatreontheridge.ca/group-sales-2023/
For booking inquiries, please contact the box office at boxoffice@theatreontheridge.ca or call 905 242-9343.

Recurring Event: Yes

Start: 09/19/2025 / End: 09/20/2025
Website: Theatre on the Ridge presents MINE! Culture Days Scugog Shores Museum 2025

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