GUELPH – There was laughter, singing, dancing and tears during the first rendition of the 2025 Speed River Anthology.
Guests enjoyed live music, theatrical performances, animation and historical film while learning true stories about people who once lived in Wellington and Guelph.
The show, presented by the Upper Grand District School Board’s MADE program, took place at the ArtBar on June 19.
Teacher Gerard Gouthro said the show celebrated community, arts and students.
The anthology was created and directed entirely by students, he said, who spent about eight weeks combining their creative and collaborative skills to prepare the show.
Stompin’ Tom
A lively enactment of Stompin’ Tom Connors’ legacy included performances of his songs from Calvin Justin Tuuha Stein, narration by Katelyn Ellis and support from other students playing roles including bar staff, bandmates and fans.
Students were in character before performances began, hanging out at the bar and interacting with guests.
Calvin Justin Tuuha Stein as Stompin’ Tom Connors, right, pretends to drink and smoke at the “Maple Leaf Hotel.” Gev Rimon, left, and Kier Holland acted as bar staff in the play.
They included interesting tidbits about Connors, including how he got his name. Bar owners were worried his repetitive stomping would damage the stage, so they put down a piece of plywood “so he could keep stompin’,” the narrator said.
As he rose into fame, Connors was awarded six Junos – which he returned in protest, and he declined induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.
Haig House
A film featuring the Haig House, which is just south of Elora on Wellington Road 7, was shot at the house, in downtown Elora, at the Elora Cemetery and at the Wellington County Museum and Archives, along with locations in Guelph.
The story begins with John Miller, or Yankee, who built a log house on the property. It depicted him falling in love there and eventually burying his wife on the property before he sold it to the Haig family for $500.
The Haig family built the stone house, and one of the Haig sons, Robert Jr., headed into Elora to find work.
The film shows his achievements and the discrimination he faced as a disabled man working in the 1800s.
His roles included clerk, joint accounting businesses owner and postmaster – a position he was removed from by conservative MP Dr. William Clarke.
The film ends in a gracefully depicted tragedy.
Melissa Smith Hesson
The students created a short animated film about Melissa Smith Hesson, a Black journalist who, along with her husband, travelled between Guelph and Detroit for work in the early 1900s.
At 20 years old Smith Hesson started writing for the Plainsdealer, Detroit’s first Black newspaper.
The focus of her writing was on the local Black community in Guelph, but the Guelph newspaper would not publish her work.
The animation includes narration shared from Smith Hesson’s voice.
The student leads on the animation were Max Friedberg, Nana Khamkaenkhun, Evee Kehoe, Jane Wood and Myles Seymour.
Erin resident and MADE student Maya Moreau played Lady Duff Gordon, or Lucy Sutherland, performed in a historical play about two “scandalous sisters,” fashion designer Gordon and “erotic” novelist Eleanor Glyn.
‘Scandalous sisters’
A performance about celebrity sisters Lady Duff Gordon and Eleanor Glyn was told primarily through letter writing – the two sisters sit at writing desks and pen messages to one another, sharing emotional life updates.
The play depicted their successes and struggles in their careers as a fashion designer and novelist, and their experiences being hounded by the press about their professional and private lives.
“It’s difficult when the entire world sees you as this offence to how women should behave,” said Stella Busch, playing Glyn.
Maya Moreau, playing Duff Gordon, said her fashion line empowered women to dress for themselves instead of “for the male gaze.”
John Herbert
The evening finished with a short play filled with drag performances, telling the story of playwright and drag queen John Herbert, played by Lukas Rose-Janes.
The play depicted Herbert’s experience facing homophobic violence and being incarcerated due to dressing in women’s clothes in the 1940s.
Lukas Rose-Janes, from Centre Wellington, played drag queen John Herbert in a performance about his experiences in Guelph and Toronto prisons in the 1940s.
One of Herbert’s most famous performances took place during a Christmas show inside a prison.
He was also given electric shock therapy while in prison.
Herbert wrote a play, that later became a film, about his experiences in prison called Fortune and Men’s Eyes.
Guelph drag queen Crystal Quartz made a special appearance to perform with Rose-Janes at the end of the show.
A second show is set for June 23, which is expected to sell out. To enquire about available tickets email Gouthro at ggouthro@ugcloud.ca.
