CULTURE GECKO
Dancing Sky’s Christmas Panto Returns with a Classic Gothic Horror Twist with Franken-Panto
By Ezekiel McAdams
December 1 2025
Dancing Sky Theatre’s annual holiday Christmas Panto returns for another year with Franken-Panto.
Franken-Panto is a gothic horror mashup combining elements of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the gingerbread man story.
The production runs from December 5th-21st 2025 at Dancing Sky Theatre in Meacham, Saskatchewan.
The production is directed by Dancing Sky’s artistic director, Angus Ferguson and stars Kevin Moxley, Josh Beaudrey, Crispi Lord and Katelyn Ressler.
Musician Blaine Hart is this year’s musical accompaniment.
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Lord and Beaudry are Dancing Sky staples being affiliated with many of their past productions.
This is is Moxley’s first Christmas panto with the company.
Moxley previously was in the company’s revamp of Paper Wheat which ran from April 25th to May 14th 2025.as well as the third edition of their Fireside Stories series, Fireside Stories III: Tell the Bees from September 5th to 14th 2025.
Ressler makes her Dancing Sky debut with Franken-Panto.
This particular production is a collaboration between Wide Open Children’s Theatre which debuted The Fraken-Gingerbread Man which ran from November 1-8th 2025. Lord is the artistic director of Wide Open and co-founded the company with Kristi Friday.
Ferguson explained how the creative process for this project is similar to Dancing Sky’s structure by much different from a traditional theatre process. “It’s way less structured. It’s very different from regular theatre. Everyone’s writing, everyone’s building, everyone’s putting in ideas. It’s a bit mad because there’s so much to do. We have a total of five weeks to create it. It’s fun. It’s a real sort of rollercoaster ride.” he laughs with Beaudry adding “The difference this year, we wrote it out about a month before we started rehearsals. We came up with the general outline and got at least the first and mostly the second act created. And then we had a month for that to gestate and when we came back we weren’t starting from scratch, we were building what we had and we had all this time to percolate the ideas, so we could start refining and crafting a little bit sooner. It’s a very coherent storyline which I love.” he said.
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Beaudry explained how excited he was to tackle something different from last year’s Baba and the Gift of the Kohkum Scarf, which was a sequel to their 2023 production, Baba’s Magic Mitten. “It’s a definitely a departure from last year in some ways and then it has all the familiar elements. It’s silly, it’s wacky. It has big characters but this time we’re moving away from Ukrainian folklore to a Gothic Horror Christmas panto.” he said.
Moxley plays baker, Frank N Stein while Beaudry plays his assistant, Igor and they explained how their characters both differ and align to previous portrayals throughout media. “I get to play Igor and we’ve borrowed creatively and heavily from Young Frankenstein in my favourite ways. We’ve taken some of the characters like Frau Blucher, we’ve thrown her into our show. I’ve taken some of elements like the cowl and some of the fun things like Bella Legosi.” Beaudry said while Moxley chimed in “I think because with panto we’re able to play homage to so many of those other portrayals. I’m hoping that I’m putting a little bit of Dr. Frankenstein that people have seen before like a little Gene Wilder from Young Frankenstein and the old classics from the 1930s and 40s movies. There’s expectations with those characters, so I enjoy the process of trying to letting all those people come through in this kind of, mashup of the genre.” Moxley said.
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Moxley is very excited to perform in his first Dancing Sky Christmas panto. “It’s been a blast to work on. It’s got all the things we love about the panto. All the chaos, all the heart, all the fun.” he said.
Moxley hopes that audiences enjoy the panto as much as he has. “The main thing I want them to take away is hurting cheeks from laughing so much but also the warm feeling inside of the warmth of Christmas and we can be satisfied with what we have.” he said.
Every Dancing Sky production is unique that always features musical accompaniment, this year features musician Blaine Hart whom Beaudry is very excited but also trepidatious in regards to tackling the musical number. “And we have Blaine Hart this year, and he’s making some hilarious songs. Blaine’s written me a great musical number. I’m terrified of singing but it’s really fun to do. Beaudry said.
Blaine Hart has been in previous Dancing Sky productions such as Baba’s Magic Mitten from December 2023, Jack At the End of the World from December 2022 and Jonas and Barry in the Home from May 2022.
Dancing Sky Theatre’s Franken-Panto runs from December 5th-21st 2025 at their theatre in Meacham, Saskatchewan. Tickets can be bought online here through On The Boards Staging Company, the box office or at the venue itself.
“I think what I always want, is just for people to come down and have a fun time. I just want them to laugh, enjoy themselves, relax and have a good time. There’s lots of time for fret and worry but when you come to a Dancing Sky panto, I think you should kick back, relax you can laugh your ass off.” Beaudry said.
Ferguson is very excited to deviate from the last few Christmas pantos that were infused with Saskatchewan culture with a horror theme that draws inspiration from Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol;. Ferguson is especially delighted as Frankenstein is a favourite of his.