SUMMERSIDE – This is no family show.
Catherine Dickson and playwright Nils Ling have teamed up to present “Swingin’ a Cat”, a one-woman show set to take the stage at The Dunk this Saturday night.
“I love a challenge,” said Dickson about being the lone performer in the spotlight. “It just gives me a chance to really stretch out.”
She plays Cat, a sassy and salty 40-something jazz and blues singer who discovers on the day of a show that her husband has left her for a 24-year-old dental hygienist.
As Ling puts it, Cat’s claws come out as she treats her nightclub audience to music, her views on life, love and the “idiot” she married.
“It isn’t enough to create a character. She has to go from point A to point B,” said the playwright of Cat’s reaction to the betrayal. “It takes her through the process of processing the news.”
That process, set out in the performance, is often brutally honest yet funny.
“It’s about how life can kick you and how you scramble back up,” said Dickson. “I can relate to moments in my life that I felt I wasn’t enough.”
But “Swingin’ a Cat” isn’t your average piece of Island theatre.
“This is a show for adults,” added Ling. “Cat is not completely wholesome.”
Featured are Dickson’s own music and lyrics along with music by Gene MacLellan, Christine Lavin, John Prine and Louis Armstrong.
Dickson’s husband, Jim, is the show’s musical arranger and will be on guitar with Todd MacLean on sax, Reg Ballagh on drums and Jon Rehder on bass.
“Swingin’ a Cat” isn’t the first project Dickson and Ling have done together.
When the Summerside woman was fundraising to take part in the Team Diabetes marathon on Greece, Ling volunteered to do a performance. Dickson then asked Ling to be part of a fundraiser featuring performers singing songs she had penned.
His imagination was sparked when he saw Dickson perform in that show as Carol Burnett and the concept for “Swingin’ a Cat” was born.
“What I wanted to create is a woman that every man would want to have and every woman would want to be,” said Ling.
Ling incorporated Dickson’s songs into “Cat’s” performance. Many of those songs have never been performed for an audience.
The pair hopes “Swingin’ a Cat” is well received and could turn into a theatrical touring show.
“She’s a brilliant character to play,” said Dickson. “I want to do her justice.”

nmacphee@journalpioneer.com