Dear Friends and Colleagues,

It’s with some sadness but mostly gratitude that I’m writing to tell you that after 36 years, I will be closing the curtain on Platypus Theatre at the end of the 2025-2026 season.

It’s hard to believe that it’s already been more than a third of a century since a 40-foot monster reared its head behind the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony in the very first performance of “Emily Saves the Orchestra”.  (I’ve pasted a photo from the dress rehearsal of that performance below.)  At the time, my brother Michael and I intended the concert to be a one-off after which we would both go back to our regular lives, he as the Artistic Administrator of the KWS and me as a freelance actor.  Funny how life has its own plans for us.

Since that first performance Platypus has had the opportunity to work with so many great artists: musicians, conductors, actors, composers, arrangers, designers, choreographers, dancers, stage managers, illustrators as well as the amazing orchestra administrators and technicians at halls across the globe without whom none of this would have happened.  Platypus has performed for nearly a million children with 75 orchestras on three continents!  I’m grateful to all of you who were not only part of the journey, but helped create it.

I want to be clear that I am not retiring!  I’m looking forward to the future and the projects it will hold and I will continue to perform “Charlotte and the Music-Maker” with any orchestra that requests it. (Keep your eye open for the film version of “Charlotte” with the Edmonton Symphony now in post-production and slated for release in the fall of 2026!)  

Above all else, the joy of Platypus was the palpable feeling of the impact we were making on the lives of young people.  With the challenging world we are now facing where so much of what young people are exposed to is dark and frightening, it’s more important than ever for them to experience the life-affirming power of the arts. In the same way that creating symphonic concerts combining music and theatre was new when Platypus began, I look forward to seeing the innovation and creativity you and the next generation of theatre and music artists and administrators will bring to the work of music education.   

Please keep in touch! My phone number will remain the same (613-792-1250) and if you would like to reach me by email please use peterduschenes@gmail.com

Thank you for the last three decades and all the best for the next ones.

With gratitude and, I must admit, a pang in my heart,

Peter