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More about the guest performers
Patricia Collins is a multi-award-winning actress (two Doras, a Gemini, a Wilderness Award and a Critics' Award among others) who makes Stratford her home, where she uses the awards as doorstops.
 | | Patricia Collins |
Patricia is pleased to be asked to help support the SSO. Music, especially classics and jazz, have been a love and inspiration throughout her life. When asked what music means to her, Patricia answered "A world without music would be intolerably sad," a sentiment, she points out, not shared by everyone. U.S General and President Ulysses S. Grant is quoted as saying, "I know only two tunes. One of them is Yankee Doodle, and the other isn't." Ed Gardiner said, "Opera is when a guy gets stabbed in the back and instead of bleeding, he sings." Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote: "Swans sing before they die - 'twere no bad thing should certain persons die before they sing."
Aggie Elliot's career in musical theatre has taken her across Canada and the U.S. (including Broadway) as well as to London's Old Vic. Aggie also spent several seasons at the Stratford Festival in the 80's and 90's, where her roles included Gianetta in The Gondoliers, and Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance. She is the recipient of three of the Stratford Festival's Tyrone Guthrie awards, and also appeared in the original production and subsequent tours of Brian Macdonald's internationally acclaimed version of The Mikado.
In addition to various TV and radio appearances, Aggie spent several years as a Kindermusik Educator in Stratford where she was director of the very popular KINDERMUSIK Studio. She has moved back to Toronto where she is pursuing a career as a recording artist. Her favourite quote: "When words fail, music speaks."
Lucinda Jones has been described as an artist by day and a sultry jazz singer by night. She is most known in the community for her excellent work as the owner /operator of My Custom Framer as well as her exhibitions of fine art at local gallery events.
Lucinda's musical background began at the age of six singing in choirs and performing solos. More recently, she was the 2012 winner of the Life-Long Musician Award at the Kiwanis Music Festival of Stratford for an outstanding life-long singer from ages 30-90. Lucinda's love for the art of printmaking in its complexity and spontaneity dovetails with the expression that is possible through the music of jazz and blues.
Teddy Payne is a well-known watercolour painter, writer, and raconteur. He comes from Constable country, the counties of Suffolk and Norfolk in eastern England, and completed his formal art education in Norwich and London. After many travels and adventures around the world, he has found his Shangri-La in Stratford, Ontario.
 | | Teddy Payne |
Teddy has completed two volumes of memoirs, The Apricot Blooms in The Desert and The Streets of Odeon. He has done a book of narrative and watercolours titled Teddy Payne's Stratford. When The Devil Drives, A Historical Romance, set around the time of the First World War, was recently published, and a sequel is imminent. The Man Who Loved Women, his latest publication, is a compilation of pictures, short stories, and poetry. He has authored a Teddy Payne's Restaurants Of Stratford, a charming little volume of watercolours, reviews, and signature recipes from the chefs (who number among his friends) of some of the world's great restaurants which call Stratford home. He donated this book as a fundraiser to the Stratford Symphony Orchestra. Music holds an important place in Teddy's heart and he usually listens to classical music as he paints. He is honoured to help support the SSO.
Sadie Lou Catherine Palach, 13, was a 2012 Kiwanis Festival winner in the Voice - Musical Contemporary and winner in multiple categories in the 2011 Kiwanis competition. She's a Grade 8 student at Sunshine Montessori School, Stratford Campus and has a slew of competitive dance medals, ribbons and awards. She is studying voice with Barbara Young.
 | | Sadie Palach |
In her words, "I love to dance and sing and I love musical theatre. I have seen dozens of musicals including A Chorus Line in New York and many musicals at the Stratford Festival since I was three. I want to be in theatre because of some great experiences I have had: After I went to see a dance performance of Edward Scissorhands in Toronto, I cried all the way home to Stratford because through the dancing, you could feel what they were trying to say, but yet they weren't talking.
"I just love theatre. Period."
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