River Clyde Arts
is a community arts organization based in New Glasgow, Prince Edward Island - the district of Epekwitk in Mi’kma’ki. River Clyde Arts produces a season of celebrated outdoor theatre and arts events: The River Clyde Pageant, our central summer theatre production, established in 2016; Sharing the Field, our fall harvest festival, established in 2021; and The River Clyde Solstice Walk in December, established in 2020.
Known locally as the River Clyde Pageant, the organization first arrived in New Glasgow with this signature summer event, a spectacular outdoor performance featuring giant puppets, boats, stiltwalkers, musicians and performers of all ages. The Pageant continues to provide an anchor celebration for the collection of artists, community participants and audiences to contribute to and discover each year. As the Pageant has grown so has the ambition and engagement of the organization. In 2023, we changed our name to River Clyde Arts, as it became apparent that the expanded season of programming, beyond the scope of the Pageant, was here to stay.
We are a registered charitable organization (operating as The Cooking Fire Theatre Festival), overseen by a board of directors and a small year-round staff.
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The River Clyde Pageant was co-founded by theatre artists Ker Wells and Megan Stewart in 2015. Ker & Megan shared a history of involvement in outdoor, community-engaged performance projects on PEI, throughout Canada and abroad, and they were eager to return to their home province to collaborate on a new outdoor production.
Ker and Megan co-directed the first four iterations of The River Clyde Pageant, from 2016 to 2019. Emily Wells, chef & owner of The Mill in New Glasgow, has served as a local liaison and coordinator of the community meals that conclude each Pageant performance since 2016.
The first River Clyde Pageant in 2016 received a remarkable level of community participation and overwhelmingly positive response. On two July evenings, almost three hundred people traveled along the banks of the River Clyde in New Glasgow, Prince Edward Island, as Pageant characters, including a giant trout puppet, great blue herons, a school of luminous jellyfish, bridge-dwelling trolls, an Acadian fisherman rowing a dory, and a Mi’kmaq drum group, told the story of the river at the heart of the community and the lives and livelihoods entwined with it. When the performance was over, the audience, performers and volunteers shared a meal on the lawn of The Mill Restaurant, as the sun set over the river.
The success of the first Pageant confirmed the value of and hunger for this type of sustained, artistic collaboration with the community of New Glasgow and surrounding areas. Since then, we have developed a cyclical process, taking two years to explore a particular performance structure and narrative. While each year’s Pageant is a new creation, the continuity allows us to deepen our research into the themes of a particular cycle, and encourages participants to discover a sense of progression as they explore opportunities for artistic growth and leadership. We are committed to an ethic that embraces social engagement and inclusivity, and prioritizes sustainability, artistic bravery and excellence regardless of level of experience.
The organization is led by Artistic Director and lead producer Megan Stewart, in collaboration with core team members Jane Wells (co-director), Emily Wells (community liaison), and Ian McFarlane (director of Production). We are profoundly grateful to continue this work with Ker’s spirit and vision at the forefront of our hearts. The Pageant serves as a legacy to his values of artistic rigour, civic practice, and caring for the earth.
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Our Story
Rivers and waterways have been the subject of much community discussion and debate on PEI in recent years, as rivers that once supported healthy fish and shellfish populations have become clogged with sea lettuce, and “anoxic events” and spontaneous “fish kills” have been dramatic indicators of serious changes in the riverine chemistry and ecosystem. It’s generally accepted that these changes are at least in part the result of decades of increasingly intensive monocrop farming, and associated pesticide, herbicide, and topsoil run-off into rivers and waterways. In recent years, as the scientific and anecdotal evidence has become more overwhelming and public recognition of effects of human activity on the environment has increased, the subject of waterway health has finally emerged into the public arena. The River Clyde Pageant is part of that emergence.
The River Clyde Pageant is not a didactic or polemical performance, but rather an inclusive and widely collaborative event that brings people from many different parts of the community together to celebrate our environment and our history; to create something thoughtful, enchanting, and fun. The free community suppers following each evening’s Pageant performance serve as an opportunity for audiences to meet the individuals involved in the Pageant’s creation and share a meal and conversation. These post-show suppers spark further discussion and storytelling related to our country’s waterways, and serve as an opportunity to propose ideas to promote environmental stewardship across generations.
Why the River Clyde?
