It's been 25 Years.....

​It all began 26 years ago, in the living room of Melissa Stephens and Craig Saunders. Seventeen theatre enthusiasts from the Highlands Community crowded into the over-filled room to create a theatre company that was soon to be called Highlands Summer Festival.

In the late spring of 1999, the former girls’ gymnasium at the Haliburton Highlands High School had been transformed into a performance space with a 24 foot wide proscenium stage, dressing rooms, a green room, a tech booth at the back and 226 raked seats. The official opening of the newly refurbished Northern Lights Performing Arts Pavilion was held and over 200 participants from a variety of performing arts groups took to the stage to delight of their family,  neighbours and friends. It was a three-performance gala event, with all the pomp and formality the opening of a new theatre deserved. 

After the dust had settled, Curtis Eastmure and Heather Scully presented four performances of Neil Simon’s Same Time Next Year. Then, just silence.

The group gathered that summer and agreed, if they didn’t do something in that space, someone else, possibly from outside the community, would. Having fought long and hard for the conversion, encouraging fund raising and grant applications, each of the partners contributed $200 and pledged to mount the first season of the Highlands Summer Festival in the summer of 2000. And that is how the whole thing started.

​Highlands Summer Festival operated as a partnership which included the founders sharing responsibilities for each season, from show selection through to final curtain, featuring local talent. In 2007 it was decided to dissolve the partnership and created a charitable, not for profit theatre company under the same name, Highlands Summer Festival.
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Since then the Festival has grown, presenting musicals, dramas and comedies as well as first class performers from across Ontario, to the delight of our faithful patrons. 

While Highlands Summer Festival lost two seasons to the COVID restrictions, the counting continued. The company was ready to open the curtains each year, but the theatre was off-limits. Like all live theatre companies, the company took a hit during the pandemic and once restrictions were lifted our patrons returned and Highlands Summer Festival was back.

Most recently, the long-serving Artistic Producer, Scot Denton, in that position since 2007, stepped down. We were fortunate that Douglas “Dougie” Walker a veteran of three Festival productions and countless professional appearances, moved to our community and accepted the position.

As we get ready celebrate the twenty-fifth season, those involved with the Highlands Summer Festival look back with pride at what has been accomplished and look forward to the next quarter century with great anticipation. Thanks to the many people who made the magic happen, our sponsors, donors and patrons who supported us through the past quarter century.