The Opeongo Line

In honour of the Ottawa Valley Irish and St. Patrick's Day, The Opeongo Readers' Theatre present two of Lady Gregory's best Irish comedies, Hyacinth Halvey and The Workhouse Ward, performed at the Hastings Highlands Public Library in Maynooth, Ontario.

For more than fifty years, the social event of Barry's Bay was the annual St. Hedwig’s Summer Picnic. Launched by a young Father Peter B. Biernacki in 1912 to help build his St. Hedwig’s Roman Catholic Church in 1914, this little village picnic quickly outgrew even his wildest dream. It became so widely known in Eastern Ontario that special nine-coach excursion trains would arrive, adding to the thousands of people who were already there for the premier church picnic of the Ottawa Valley. 

Three short one-act comedies adapted from Anton Chekhov: A Tragedian In Spite of Herself, The Proposal, and The Bear.  Performed in Barry's Bay, Ontario at the old train station on February 9th, 2020 by The Opeongo Readers' Theatre in front of a live audience in honour of St. Valentine's Day. 

In the winter of 1847, a young British physician arrived in Montreal and made his way up through the Ottawa Valley, arriving eventually in a tiny backwoods settlement along its western frontier.  What he experienced there over the next few years, he put into a set of uniquely vivid letters he sent back to England.  Performed by The Opeongo Readers' Theatre at the Pembroke Public Library on January 25th, 2020, those letters provides a unique window into the dark, druidical world that would become Renfrew County. 

One of the great institutions of Barry's Bay, The Balmoral started out as a small railway hotel, built in 1894 by Josh Billings in response to the coming of the OA & PS Railroad.  Over the next 100 years, it became much more to the local community. Joanne Billings-Olsen reminisces with The Local host, Sean Conway about the life and times of The Balmoral, including working there when she was only eleven years old.

An adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's "A Russian Christmas Party" performed live at the old Barry's Bay Train Station on Tuesday, December 10th 2019 by the Opeongo Radio Flyers.