The 1000 Islands Playhouse is closing out their season with a foot-stomping production of “Dear Johnny Deere.” The book is by Ken Cameron and is based on the music and lyrics of Fred Eaglesmith, with additional music and arrangements by Music Director David Archibald. If you’re not familiar with Fred Eaglesmith, and I wasn’t, his funny and evocative songs have garnered numerous awards in the US and Canada in the country and bluegrass fields.

Playwright Cameron has woven a plot around 15 Fred Eaglesmith songs. Johnny, well-played by Greg Gale, and his wife Caroline, again well-played by Shannon Currie, are having emotional, financial, and farming problems. Into the mix comes Mike, played by the versatile Bruce Horak, with an offer to buy the farm. Mr. Horak also plays Johnny’s father and a snobbish tractor collector. The whole is narrated by the excellent Jeff Culbert playing Johnny’s neighbor, McAllister. The only cast member who doesn’t speak is the dynamite fiddler Capucine Onn. As you might expect, everything works out. These are all good actors, but the show is really about the music.

Listing a few of the song titles will give you the idea: “White Trash,” “Spookin’ the Horses,” “I Wanna Buy Your Truck,” “Old John Deere,” “Time to Get a Gun,” and “It’s Got a Bench Seat Baby” that includes a snippet of “It’s a Mighty Big Car.” All these actors are terrific singers, including Music Director David Archibald, and they all play multiple instruments. …

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Photo: Jay Kopinski.  Mabel (Alison MacDonald) and Frederic (Adam Charles).

Whatever one does to a Gilbert and Sullivan production, the original witty book and lyrics, the music, the operatic influences, the satire and the perfectly delightful characters /caricatures, all come through in the end. The works of Gilbert and Sullivan are indestructible and that is exactly what I kept thinking through this recent matinee performance in Gananoque as the pirates and the Major General’s daughters lapsed into a wild Charleston to celebrate their collective marriage . This new contemporary version, the first really campy production of G and S I have ever seen, was apparently done to show the Americans, those “Yankee Boozers” on the other side of the river who visit the Playhouse, that we too can do the kind of musical comedy they know best. We too have our own G and S or Gin and Soda style of stage fun.That was what we learned during the prologue to the show which preceded the overture. .

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