Image Credit: FACEBOOK/Caravan Farm Theatre

After a turbulent two years caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the North Okanagan's Caravan Farm Theatre is back for its 44th season with shows starting in just a few weeks.

The popular theatre has announced its 2022 season kicking off in May with its stories that are listened to while walking through the fields and forests around the professional outdoor theatre company's property in Spallumcheen, north of Vernon.

"We are coming back with a bang," theatre artistic and managing director Estelle Shook said in a media release. "And we have a year-round slate of artistic programming to offer our audiences."

The season opens May 9 with The Audio Land Walks. Three storytelling journeys each 30 minutes long take audiences on a two-and-a-half-kilometre ramble through the theatre while listening to the stories.

"These are interactive, evocative encounters with the art of audio storytelling and our beautiful landscape. Each one is meticulously produced and provides the listener with a unique and highly personal way in which to experience them – one can do these solo, in a reflective, meditative way; or more socially as part of a family or friend outing," Shook said in the release. "They are a wonderful opportunity to get out of the house for an artistic adventure."

The audio walks start May 9 and run Thursday to Sunday afternoon throughout the spring and summer.

This summer's big production is Blackhorse, a horse opera written by Shuswap writer Linz Kenyon and directed by Shook.

The theatre says the production incorporates horses in both the staging and storytelling for the first time in years.

"Blackhorse is the contemporary tale of a B.C. couple struggling to raise a family, own a home and cope with one parent away at work in the Alberta oil patch," the release said. "Folks can expect the same gritty, hilarious rural poetry and bust-out-of-the-gates indie-rock score that is Linz’s hallmark, as well as some spectacular staging featuring six heavy horses and a team of local horsewomen, led by heavy horse-pulling champ Joyce Marchant."

Blackhorse runs from July 14 to Aug. 7 and tickets go on sale April 25.

In August, the theatre will hold its third Caravan Film Festival, which includes the Indigenous Short-Film Showcase.

In October Sound Walk of Terror: Sparagmos will be held and December will bring the winter show The Wonderful.

"A wild adaptation" of It’s a Wonderful Life, from a Black perspective written by African-Canadian slam poet Luke Reece. It will be the theatre's famous winter sleigh ride show.

"We’re really excited about this piece. The Black experience in rural Canada is a story not often told, and it is one that needs telling. We are so thrilled to present Luke’s premiere and to welcome the exciting creative artists at the helm of this work. The Wonderful wraps up what will be a big, bold season of spectacular, meaningful, theatre for our community."

For more information go here.

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