Babe Chorus worked their magic for a sold-out Sadleir House last weekend

The event space at Sadleir House glowed orange on October 19 for a witchy spectacle featuring music, drag, projections, dramatic readings, and skits all inspired by the 1998 cult classic movie Practical Magic.

Local band Babe Chorus began the evening by scattering flower petals amongst the audience and laughing as they slowly danced their way onto the stage. Cheyenne Burnett played the film’s theme song on her flute as she followed her bandmates to the front of the room.

What followed was a fun, campy, and heartfelt cabaret which focused on the themes of magic, love, sisterhood, and surviving domestic violence.

Practical Magic tells the story of two sisters with an innate talent for witchcraft. They are burdened by a family curse, which dooms all of their romantic relationships to end in tragedy.

The performers didn’t shy away from the more challenging aspects of the source material. “We can’t forget that Practical Magic is also a story about escaping domestic abuse,” said guest vocalist Missy Knott before singing A Case of You by Joni Mitchell. “I know that many of us have experienced this so I want to remind you that you’re all safe here.”

For Burnett, who sings in Babe Chorus in addition to playing flute, Practical Magic holds a lot of personal significance. “It’s been my favourite movie since it came out in 1998,” Burnett said, adding that Babe Chorus guitarist and vocalist Sarah van den Berg even read quotes from the movie at Burnett’s wedding.

The movie is “about accepting your identity and embracing the things that make you different,” Burnett said. “I think being a witch is a metaphor for being someone who makes decisions for themselves and who stands up for what they believe in.”

Playing the movie soundtrack together every fall has become a tradition for Burnett and van den Berg. Last year, they got more ambitious and decided to make it a public event, inviting the rest of their band for a live Halloween show at Jethro’s Bar and Stage. “It was a really fun time,” van den Berg said. “We rented a smoke machine to add to the ambiance of the show and we accidentally set off the fire alarm.”

As a result of that mishap there was no smoke machine at the event last weekend, but the show did include projections of scenes and imagery from the movie prepared by Luke Gauthier. Drag performances by Sahira Q and Magnolia Knox were also new additions this year.

“Adding drag felt like a natural fit. It’s a pretty campy, dramatic movie with such a signature, whimsical aesthetic,” Burnett said. “We know how important it is to amplify local drag, support the Queens, and create queer-friendly events in Peterborough.”

During their first lip-synched skit of the evening, Sahira Q pointed out the 1998 film’s lack of diversity. “We were so grateful when we heard Sahira would be calling out the movie’s whiteness through their drag performance,” Burnett said.

“The movie certainly has its issues,” agreed van den Berg. “We were glad the film could be a jumping off point for important, critical conversations.”

To support Babe Chorus in their efforts, the Trent Queer Collective sponsored the Practical Magic event, ensuring guest artists were paid for their time.

To cap off the show, one of the final performances of the night featured Burnett and van den Berg as Practical Magic’s main characters. They acted out a climactic scene to laughs from the audience, enacting a spell to revive a dangerously abusive dead boyfriend by chanting an incantation and spraying whipped cream in a pentagram shape on the corpse’s chest.

“We definitely aren’t trying to prove our acting skills,” Burnett laughed. “It was just about getting wild and silly and enjoying that sense of belonging with the audience.”