WCT unveils lineup for 51st season in Kamloops; first-ever for artistic director Fox

“We thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun to do a musical right at the top of the season and tie it into Halloween?’ But then we thought, ‘If we’re taking away this experience that families have become accustomed to having in the holiday season, we’ve got to try and make up for that.'”

In comes a stage adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which will run Dec. 3 to 20 at the Pavilion Theatre.

The Sagebrush Series of shows will also feature Ins Choi’s Son of a Preacherman Nov. 18 to 29, Rachel Mutombo’s Wake Jan. 21 to 31, 2027, Tomson Highway’s Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout Feb. 18 to 28, 2027, and Farren Timoteo’s Made In Italy, April 8 to 18.

Fox said Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout is returning to the theatre where it was commissioned a little over 25 years ago.

“The story covers about 100 years of history, but it’s all collapsed into a day,” Fox said, of the play which follows four Secwépemc women as they prepare a feast for the arrival of Prime Minister Wilfred Laurier.

“The pressure cooker that the Thompson Highway creates makes for riotous comedy, an epic tragedy. The scale of it is huge. It’s all very kind of coyote, trickster informed,” Fox said.

As for Made In Italy, it is also returning to Kamloops a decade after it was created for the Pavilion Theatre stage.

“It has since been growing and touring across the country, and it’s won prizes and praise in every major centre in the country that it’s played in, and we’re really excited to bring it back now that it is all grown up and ready for the Sagebrush stage,” Fox said.

The run of shows at the Pavilion Theatre gets underway with a special presentation of Where the Wild Things Are Sept. 23 to 27, an adaptation of the children’s book by Maurice Sendak. There will also be six matinee shows for students only.

WCT will close out the 2026/27 season with a production of Diane Flack’s Guilt: A Love Story at the Pavilion Theatre, April 29 to May 9 next year.

This upcoming season is a special one for Fox – who joined Western Canada Theatre last year – as it’s the first one she’s helped curate during her career as an artistic director anywhere.

“It was a big journey putting it together but I’m really excited about what we put together,” Fox said. “It’s been it’s been a tough year, I think, and we could all use a break. We’ve got a lot in here that is about reconnecting with our community around us and finding a place of a home and a place of joy, and I want people to come back for that.”

“Everything is getting a lot more expensive and we do our best to not pass those costs on to ticket buyers because we know that this is a choice people make to buy a ticket and spend their discretionary dollars with us rather than anywhere else.”

There is one more show to go in WCT’s all-Canadian 50th anniversary season. Wolf Cull by Cheyenne Scott will open at the Pavilion Theatre on April 30 and run until May 10.

WCT is also preparing to host a fundraising event this Friday (April 24) at the Sagebrush Theatre. It’s called Breaking Ground: 50 Years of WCT and it will be a celebration of five-decades of history featuring live music, a silent auction and a ’70s disco dance party.

Tickets for the 2026/26 WCT season are now on sale through the Kamloops Live Box Office. More information about the upcoming season and tickets can be found here.

by Victor Kaisar

WCT unveils lineup for 51st season in Kamloops; first-ever for artistic director Fox

Our Community