The Opeongo Line

Four From Dublin

Four short stories taken from James Joyce's The Dubliners: Araby, Eveline, The Boarding House and Counterparts, each one a revelation, if not an epiphany.  Read by Jeff Bowman, Cathy Chapeskie, Lynn Stewart and Mark Woermke of The Opeongo Readers' Theatre.

Dear Queen Elizabeth (Part One)

A special Canada Day celebration with Arthur Milnes, a curious Canadian, who regales us with a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at our Canadian Prime Ministers and other world leaders. 

Dear Queen Elizabeth (Part Two)

A special Canada Day celebration with Arthur Milnes, a curious Canadian, who regales us with a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at our Canadian Prime Ministers and other world leaders.  

Lilies of the Valley

The Opeongo Readers' Theatre present three oral histories collected in the Upper Madawaska Valley in the early 1990s. They include Rose Burchat Chapeskie (1909-2000), Evelyn Hildebrandt Villeneuve (1919-2002) and Bernice O'Grady Billings (1926-2005).

Ghost Stories for a Summer Campfire

Jeff Bowman, Kristin Marchand and Mark Woermke perform three classic ghost stories as The Opeongo Readers' Theatre presents Saki's Open Window, Edgar Allan Poe's Tell-tale Heart and W.W. Jacobs' Monkey's Paw.

Victoria Day Special

In this year of Covid-19 when every major social event seems to be cancelled, our intrepid Opeongo Readers' Theatre arrives just in time to help celebrate Victoria Day like only Canadians do, and like only a village with a curious Balmoral connection to Queen Victoria can.  Listen to some unique historical moments in the life of the 19th century England, as well as one very giddy British ghost story by Canada's favourite humorist, Stephen Leacock.

Service for Troubled Times

Mark Woermke of The Opeongo Readers' Theatre performs some of Robert Service's best-loved poems -- The Shooting of Dan McGrew, The Cremation of Sam McGee -- along with some other unique works, appropriate for a pandemic. It's a performance bound to lift your spirits.

She Shoots! She Scores!

Join Rural Roots' host Mark Woermke as he rides in an old half-ton truck with two of the locally-famous members of the 1973-74 Women's Hockey Association Champions, Marie Villeneuve and Judy Whelan, as they relive their glory days.

Irish Funny Bones

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.

St. Hedwig's Picnics (1912-1960s)

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.