Globus Theatre offers great dining, top-notch plays

On a winding country road just outside of Bobcaygeon, the Globus Theatre and Lakeview Arts Barn offers a quality theatre experience for tourists and locals alike.

The Globus offers an intimate theatre-going experience. With just 150 seats, it is the “perfect venue and perfect space, designed specifically for us,” says Sarah Quick, who runs the theatre.

“With 150 seats, the audience is very close to the action. Because of this, our focus is on shows with small casts, which are heavily based on stories and characters as opposed to big extravaganzas.” In an age punctuated by Hollywood spectacle, these smaller, more relateable stories should be a welcome change for most people.

The theatre came about 15 years ago, when the barn (which was previously a dance hall) transformed into the building it is today. Because of the combination of the Lakeview Arts Barn and theatre, the Globus offers a uniquely full experience, as people can come and eat dinner before the show.

Quick, who is an actor and writer as well, has toured in England and Ireland and across Canada and Australia. She has done the Canadian Circuit, which runs from Montreal to Vancouver, and it was this circuit which helped her realize that “Canadians love their art and they love going to the theatre.”

In Ireland, she toured in theatres in fields on dirt roads outside of small towns. Yet these small, seemingly out of the way theatres could still get 80-100 people to come out to a show, despite their geographic loneliness. Rural Ontario, says Sarah, is the same way in many respects.

The Globus Theatre is currently gearing up to work with the Butter Tart Tour, which in collaboration has become the Art and Tart Tour, accompanied by a special murder mystery play written by Quick herself (The Great Butter Tart Tour Tragedy). This play may or may not contain characters based upon bakers in the area. The theatre will also soon provide a home for a new musical mystery called Murder for Two, which is being performed in the round (‘the round’ refers to plays where the stage is surrounded by the audience).

With its emphasis on Canadian-written plays, Globus’ contribution helps build and commemorate the Canadian theatre canon. There is also an emphasis on producing plays written by females, a perspective historically misrepresented.