Northern Light Theatre kicks off season with heavy metal rumination on aging

When a nearly-divorced woman of 60 is forced to move in with her adult son and his family, she faces an existential crisis, and quite possibly a line-up for the bathroom.

While this might qualify as your worst nightmare (it’s certainly mine), under the playful pen and skilled direction of Trevor Schmidt, the audience can expect more than a few laughs from Iron Matron.

The play — starring Patricia Darbasie, Linda Grass and Pamela Schmunk — enjoys its world premiere as Northern Light Theatre opens its 51st season Oct. 23. It runs till Nov. 7 in the Studio theatre of Fringe Theatre Adventures. In the one-act, the central character (in an effort to cope with her new and reduced circumstances) unites with two other women to form a heavy metal garage band.

“I wanted to write a play for older women that would be funny and fun,” says Schmidt, the artistic director of Northern Light Theatre for more than 20 years. “I thought the idea of granny rocking out to heavy metal would be fun in the same way that Betty White swearing is funny.”

But Schmidt didn’t want to write about menopause, dementia or the patriarchy (themes that are whipping through the zeitgeist like a hot-flash hurricane in books such as All Fours by Miranda July, and TV series such as Sharon Horgan’s Youth or Brit Box’s Riot Women). What he wanted to do was explore, in a humorous but also dramatic fashion, the shifts that take place in relationships and friendships among people moving from middle-age to the next stage.

Though NLT has always focused on issues of interest to women, Schmidt, at 57, also feels the pressures wrought by aging. “At a certain age, we say ‘what unites us, what bonds us as friends? Is it our past history, or our common interests now? And how do we maintain friends and make new ones at our age?”

In Iron Matron, Alice (Pamela Schmunk in her NLT debut) tracks down her estranged college roommate Corinne (played by one of Schmidt’s favourite local actors, Linda Grass) to kick-start the band. But when they advertise for a drummer, newcomer and career musician Rita (Patricia Darbasie) brings unexpected energy and challenges to the stage.

One of the characters feels like less of a person now that she’s single, another has a sick husband she’s afraid of losing and the third’s career is coming to an end. What unites them is a fear that the future contains…nothing.

“(The story) is about ‘Who am I now? How are others perceiving me? How do we continue to be noticed?’” says Schmidt.

Iron Matron is part of a three-show season for 2026/27 that Schmidt calls the Life Takes a Turn season. All plays feature characters who are suddenly at a crossroads they didn’t see coming.

The second play, Milked, (by British playwright Simon Longman) stars Michael Watt as Snowy and Émanuel Dubbeldam as Paul. In the rural drama, both characters are young men deciding what to do with their future. When Snowy finds an ailing cow stuck in a local field, he ropes Paul into trying to help it. Directed by Schmidt, Milked is a darkly funny look at the choices people make as they enter adulthood. It runs from Jan. 22 to Feb. 8, 2027.

The last production of the season (April 9 to 24) is Tom Kempinski’s Duet for One. It stars Liana Shannon as Stephanie Abrahams, a renowned concert violinist diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Struggling with her identity as her career and marriage crumble, she seeks advice from psychiatrist Dr. Feldmann (Melanie Dreyer-Lude). Written in the 1980s, the powerful story was made into a 1986 movie starring Julie Andrews, and has also been mounted in both London’s West End and on Broadway in the years before and since.

Shannon has personal experience with career-threatening health issues. The local professional actor, who has juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, has been in a wheelchair since 2024 after a fall following hip surgery.

“She’s so brave and smart and gritty and she likes hard, challenging stuff,” says Schmidt, who directs the production.

In Duet for One, and all of the shows this season, characters are put in a position that forces them to make decisions under pressure. That’s no accident.

“That’s the point of drama, really, an actor with really high stakes, a character with a life-changing decision before them, and whether they make choices that serve them, or the community they live in. These characters have to choose being true to themselves or true to others…I like to hold that mirror up,” says Schmidt.

Where: Studio Theatre, Fringe Theatre Adventures, 10330 84 Ave.

When: Oct. 22 to Nov. 7

Tickets: From $15 available at northernlighttheatre.com or by calling 780-471-1586

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