THE CANNON THEATRE
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  • Prior Seasons
    • The Haunting Hour
    • Disco Divas Kids/Teen Summer Show
    • Glass Menagerie
    • Matilda, the MUsical
    • How The Other Half Loves
    • Improv Workshop with Hailey Smith
    • Mystery Dinner Theater at The Colonial Inn
    • An Evening of One Acts
    • Singin' In The Rain
    • Cheaper By the Dozen
    • Mary Poppins
    • A Christmas Carol
    • Blackadder
    • Dinner Theater at The Colonial Inn
    • Sip Sassparilly Saloon
    • Ten Minute Play Festival
    • Annie Get Your Gun
    • Moon Over Buffalo >
      • Meet the Director
    • James and The Giant Peach Musical
    • Christimas Carol Radio Show 2017
    • Fahrenheit 451
    • Mystery Dinner Theatre atThe Colonial Inn
    • How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
    • Hay Fever
    • The Aristocats
    • Its A Wonderful Life
    • Peter and The Starcatcher
    • Mystery Dinner Theatre
    • The Drowsy Chaperone
    • Twelfth Night
    • The Reluctant Dragon
    • The Christmas Carol
    • Fawlty Towers >
      • About the Director
    • The Slipper and the Rose
    • Cyrano De Bergerac
    • Return to Oz
    • "Its A Wonderful Life" Holiday Radio Show
    • It Could Be Any One of Us
    • DISCO DIVAS Kids/Teen Summer Program 2014
    • A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
    • A Bad Year for Tomatoes
    • 12 Dancing Princesses
    • Miracle on 34th Street
    • Anne Of Green Gables
    • Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
    • An Ideal Husband
    • Popeye, The Musical
    • "A Christmas Carol" Radio Show
    • Murdered To Death
    • Blithe Spirit
    • She Loves Me
    • See How They Run >
      • Second Chance Revue Sept. 2010 >
        • Second Chance Revue
        • Cast
      • Meet the Director
    • Second Chance Revue 2011
    • Arsenic And Old Lace
    • By Jeeves
    • Second Chance Revue Feb. 2011
    • Alice In Wonderland
    • Charleys Aunt >
      • About The Director
    • The Importance Of Being Earnest >
      • Earnest Photos
      • Earnest Cast
      • Beauty And The Beast Jr.
    • Lucky Stiff >
      • Lucky Stiff Reviews
      • Lucky Stiff Cast List
    • James and the Giant Peach >
      • James - About the Show
    • Rookery Nook >
      • Rookery Nook - Reviews
    • The Pirates Of Penzance
    • The Little Princess

The History of The Cannon Theatre

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The Cannon Theatre was founded by Shawn Cannon and Bret Bahe, who shared a dream of creating a community theater – a place for learning, and great plays, a place where people could enjoy the company of others, laugh, and just lose themselves in the joy of artistic expression. This intimate performance space was conceived of, designed, and built from scratch after they discovered and saw the great potential of a unique open space in the old mill building in Littleton. Over the years, the theater incorporated, and then became a non-profit organization, managed so that every precious cent made from each production is carefully fed right back into the creation of the next. The Cannon Theatre board, which still includes the theater’s very active and passionate founders, invites you to join us and experience this welcoming community, whether as an audience member, an actor, backstage crew, or even director. We guarantee you will leave feeling satisfied!

Shawn Cannon, Artistic Director
scannon@thecannontheatre.org

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Shawn Cannon has been acting and singing since having the role of Cinderella in fourth grade!   She studied in Texas, Colorado, and Utah, majoring in drama, vocal performance, and TV/Film acting.  She modeled for 20 years and has also performed in theatre, musicals, bands, cabaret, and TV & Film. The areas she has worked in are Houston, Denver, Chicago, LA, and Boston.  She has also been directing for over 25 years, does choreography, musical directing and writes original musicals.  Some of her favorite plays she has directed are:  "Bye, Bye Birdie", "Moon Over Buffalo", "Steel Magnolias", "Jane Eyre", "Lucky Stiff", "Popeye, The Musical", "By Jeeves", "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels", " A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to The Forum", "Peter and the Starcatcher", " How To Succeed In Business",  "Annie Get Your Gun" and "Matilda".

She has taught voice and acting for over 25 years, teaching for JF Talent in Denver, Colo.,  John Robert Powers in Los Angeles, CA, the Acting Loft in Manchester, NH, for Acton-Boxboro Community Education in Acton, MA, and for  Littleton Community Ed.  She is currently singing in a Rod Stewart tribute band, with the “Blondes Have More Fun” band.   She also enjoys doing solo gigs----singing at weddings, private and corporate parties whenever she gets a booking---traveling all over the country as well as overseas!  

 She has tried to create a black box theatre with quality, family friendly shows that are enjoyed by all ages.   She also is intent on teaching kids and teens how to experience and learn what good theater is all about----from the blocking, characterizations, and acting techniques, to the costuming and hair and makeup.   She wants to create a whole new generation of kids with theatre knowledge!

Bret Bahe, Technical Director, Set Design and Construction bbahe@thecannontheatre.org

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Bret spent 10 years in Hollywood building sets, working as a professional propmaker.   He met Shawn there, and since she needed someone to run her sound at her cabaret shows, he quickly took on that challenge also.    He loves doing photography, and after spending another 10 years doing that in LA, he has started taking pictures again....    He is a HUGE part of The Cannon Theatre, and has worked right alongside Shawn----whom he eventually married----building this theatre and making their dream come true.

Board Members

Matt Foster - President 
mfoster@thecannontheatre.org

Graham Daley - Vice President
​gdaley@thecannontheatre.org

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Matt Foster is passionate about the performing arts, and Community Theater in particular. He is a 20-year veteran of the US Air Force where he was an Engineer and Program Manager. After completing his Air Force career, Matt worked at Raytheon where he was a Senior Manager responsible for management of programs valued at over $50 million. Now retired, Matt used to joke that he was just doing the engineering gig between acting roles to pay the bills. Matt has performed in several shows, and his roles include “Beau” in Mame, “Tully Bascom” in The Mouse That Roared, “Winston Smith” in 1984, “Action” in West Side Story, “Baldrick” in Blackadder,  “Scrooge” in A Christmas Carol Radio Play and “Dad” in Cheaper by the Dozen.  Matt currently resides in Westford with his wife Nancy. 

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Graham Daley has served in the role of Vice President since early 2018. She has been seen on The Cannon Theatre stage as Rosemary Pilkington in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Dolly Tate in Annie Get your Gun, as well as a director and actor in the Ten Minute Play Festival. Graham brings experience in other theater groups as well, serving on several boards and in roles such as producer, assistant director, choreographer, make up, tech, and set build. When not on or backstage, Graham manages other forms of chaos as an high school educator in the sciences, a mentor to new faculty, and the advisor of the AHS Young Feminist Alliance.

Heather Pruiksma - Secretary
​hpruiksma@thecannontheatre.org
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Heather Pruiksma has been an active member of the board since early 2018, but has enjoyed acting on The Cannon Theatre stage since 2013, having starred as Christine Colgate in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Janet van de Graaf in The Drowsy Chaperone, Hedy LaRue in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun.
Professionally, Heather is the Director of Program Delivery at international environmental nonprofit Earthwatch Institute, where she has worked since 2001. In this role she manages a department of 15 staff, heads up the Incident Management Team, and oversees the responsible delivery of over three million dollars in research and community program grants each year. Heather also serves as a board member for Earthwatch Canada.
Heather was the President of the board for two years (2018-2019), and now applies her broad experience in nonprofit administration in the role of Secretary.

Linda Valentine-Treasurer,  tickets@thecannontheatre.org
​lvalentine@thecannontheatre.org

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Organized and thorough, Linda brings to the Board an unparalleled passion for the success of the theater.  She holds a degree in Business Administration from Charter Oak College and a
Certificate in Personnel Management from Cornell’s NYSSILR.  Together with her husband, she currently runs a small law office, and is actively involved with other local non-profits.  She has
previously served as Secretary of the Board for Theatre West of West Haven, CT;  has been the past president and driving force behind creating the CT non-profit organization The Amity Regional Aquatic Club; and has served as both Vice President and President of the Orange Community Nursery School.


Sally Reid-Member at Large
​sreid@thecannontheatre.org

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Sally caught the theater and music bug as a young child and went on to study Music, Theater and Dance at Dean College, performing theater professionally for nearly a decade in roles such as “Sister” in “Damn Yankees,” working with TV’s “Loveboat” Ted Lange before going on hiatus to focus on raising her family of four children. Sally began performing live theater again 2018 taking on the Role of “Captain Bill Slank”, in The Beatrice Herford Vokes Theatres performance of “Peter and the Starcatcher”, which lead her to The Cannon Theater. She was embraced with open arms by the Cannon Theatre family while performing as “Agatha Trunchbull”in their 2019-2019 production of Matilda.  She as since directed, stage managed, and joined the Board. In her professional life, Sally works for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Army National Guard as the Distance Learning Training and Resource Coordinator.  Responsible for the maintenance and scheduling of the Massachusetts National Guards vital training hardware, and event coordination, Sally’s skills to be well organized, focused and integrity-oriented are highly valued & utilized here at The Cannon Theatre. 

Nathaniel Paxton-Member at Large
​npaxton@thecannontheatre.org

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Nate has worked in engineering, business development, and product management during his professional career.  He has a demonstrated ability to establish successful business relationships, manage internal and external stake holders, develop product features, drive product requirements, work closely with cross functional teams, communicate with executive management, understand market opportunities, and launch new products to market. He has always been interested in the arts and the humanities since his university days and now is retired. He has taken interest in supporting small, entrepreneurial organizations in the community like the Cannon Theater. Nate was an active member of the Littleton chapter of Rotary International before moving to Centerville, MA, where he is now involved with the Centerville Civic Organization, the Cotuit Art Center, and the Cape Playhouse.

Chris Merritt - Member at Large
cmerritt@thecannontheatre.org
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Chris has been serving the cannon board since 2018 as part of the artistic committee. He has performed and directed all over New England as well as his hometown in Virginia. While Chris is not attending to board matters, he is a traveling actor for Deanas Educational Theatre Company (Wakefield), where he educates children, teens, adults in bystander intervention and maintaining healthy relationships.

Jeremy McMahon-Member at Large
​jmcmahon@thecannontheatre.org

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Originally from the UK, Jerry began performing in local theater in 2018, when his wife Jen dared him to audition for a stage adaptation of the BBC comedy Blackadder (a childhood favorite) here at the Cannon Theater. He then appeared with his son Jude in Cheaper by the Dozen, also at the Cannon, followed by Neil Simon’s California Suite at Theater III in Acton and Mr. Wormwood in last season’s production of Matilda, again at the Cannon. Professionally, Jerry has had a 25 year career in financial forecasting and inventory management with international sports brands, such as Puma, Nike and Foot Locker. He is currently the Director of Business Process and Development at a major US retailer and lives in Littleton with his wife and three children.

Contact Information

 Any of the above e-mails, or 978-448-2108
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