Play revisits fight to halt Peterborough Collegiate and Vocational School closure

The fight to attempt to prevent the closure of Peterborough Collegiate and Vocational School in downtown Peterborough, Ont., is now being portrayed on stage — in the very same building that housed the high school.

Despite over a year of protests by students and the community, school board officials voted to close the arts-focused high school in 2012 at the end school year due to declining enrolment. The Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board also repurposed the building for alternative programming. Peterborough Collegiate was founded in 1827.

Now, on Friday, the play Give ‘Em Hell” will share the story of the student activism that led headlines in the city and garnered national attention. Playwright and producer Madeline Brown spent three years researching the issue and says the students’ story was made for theatre.

“When I just started going through physical archives and digital archives and I plotted out all the different events, it became very clear to me that there was a very natural arc to the whole thing,” she said.

“And you could recreate a lot of those protests in particular on stage and they would read the same as they did in history.”

The play spans the final school year leading up to the closure, covering the creation of student group ‘Raiders in Action’ and their fight with the school board — which included many public rallies and raising more than $50,000 to support a judicial review of the school board’s accommodation review process.

An independent facilitator’s report to the Ministry of Education determined no errors were made in the board’s review.

Their fight even garnered attention from comedian Rick Mercer who recorded a seven-minute segment for his show, Rick Mercer Report.

The cast and crew are in their final week of rehearsals, performing in the very auditorium the group organized out of, complete with authentic props donated by former PCVS graduates. The building now houses the Peterborough Alternative and Continuing Education.

“It feels like the perfect venue and the only venue in some ways,” said Brown.

To add more authenticity, Brown has cast young actors to play the roles of the former students.

For cast member Ella Cunningham, it has been an educational experience portraying a key moment in her city’s history.

She says representing actual people her age who rallied behind a cause has been rewarding.

“I want them to be able to see it and feel good about their past accomplishments and know that they were actually inspiring,” she said.

“They got to test out a lot of leadership roles that they wouldn’t otherwise have had because it was a very intense experience for them.”

The play debuts on Sept. 15 at 7:30 p.m. Doors open at 6:45 p.m. There are also 7:30 p.m. shows on Sept. 16, Sept. 21-23. A 2:30 p.m. show is scheduled Sept. 17.

Tickets can be purchased online.

— with files from Sam Houpt/Global News Peterborough