The Kid from Simcoe Street: A Peterborough Story Comes Home

JUNE 4 – 7
Market Hall Performing Arts Centre

The Kid from Simcoe Street arrives onstage as a theatrical fundraiser for Trent Valley Archives—an intimate, deeply human portrait of one boy’s life growing up in Peterborough during the Depression and World War II. Written for the stage by Ed Schroeter and Gerry McBride, adapted from James Clarke’s acclaimed memoir, and shaped through script editing by David Francis Clarke, the production is directed by Drew Mills and stage-managed by Barb Mills.

At the centre of the story is James Clarke—retired Ontario Superior Court Justice, celebrated poet, and a kid who grew up just around the corner from Market Hall at 249 Simcoe Street. His world is small but vivid: a tight-knit neighbourhood, a city shaped by hard times, and the larger-than-life figure of his father, Sam. As a young boy, Jimmy sees his father through the soft focus of childhood hero worship—until Sam leaves to fight in the Second World War. The man who returns four years later isn’t the one who left. Wounded in body and spirit, he’s now wrestling with alcohol, gambling, and trauma that Jimmy is only beginning to understand.

What unfolds is a coming-of-age story as tender as it is unflinching—a son learning to hold both love and sorrow in the same hand. Yet even as Jimmy confronts painful truths, his world is buoyed by a community that refuses to let him sink. Firefighters, teachers, nuns, neighbours, hoteliers, lawyers, and, above all, his mother rally around him, guiding a boy with big potential toward a life of meaning, service, and self-discovery.

Rich with references to Peterborough’s past—from its buildings and personalities to its wartime atmosphere—the play is a hometown story in every sense. For history lovers, veterans, long-time locals, and anyone who grew up believing a city could help raise a child, The Kid from Simcoe Street is a heartfelt reminder of how a community shapes a life—and how a life, in turn, becomes part of the story of a place.

TICKETS: CABARET: $40 INCL. HST & FEES
REGULAR $30 INCL. HST & FEES