New West Theatre Opens Season With a Rock Revue for Every Generation

New West Theatre is raising the curtain on their 2025-2026 season with the first of their four mainstage shows of the year, Decades: Remixed, a high-energy rock revue, opening Thursday, August 7th.

We got a sneak peek of the production Wednesday evening, and it’s a nonstop stream of songs you’ll want to sing along to and skits that’ll have you cry-laughing.

You might remember their show called Decades a couple of summers ago, featuring music across the eras. It was such a hit that they decided to use the formula again for a new, ton-of-fun show.

“It’s a journey through rock history. Peppered in are some comedy sketches and some fun costumes,” Co-Director Grahame Renyk said, alongside Co-Director and Choreographer Jessica Ens. “It’s exciting to evoke music nostalgia for the audience, but it also builds a little bit of nostalgia for us. I think the first time Jess and I did a show together was 15 years ago, so it’s getting back together with some people and putting these shows together.”

Jessica added, “I think that the timing is quite nostalgic too. [Over the years] there’s been two shows in the summer or one show in the summer, but it’s a mainstay. I think that people expect a revue show at that time.”

If you are at all familiar with New West Theatre, you know how celebrated their summer and Christmas revue shows are. They’ve been entertaining Lethbians for decades. The organization started in 1990 with a single summer music-comedy revue and expanded from there.

“The summer is kind of fun, breezy, and sort of a more rock-and-roll kind of time,” Grahame explained. “Christmas is for a different kind of time. This is big laughs, big songs, big power ballads—because of course the eighties are part of the show—and a lot of great tunes.”

Decades: Remixed has two acts with two different approaches. The first half of the show samples from well-known hits between the nineties until today and performs full songs, while the first act starts in the fifties and moves chronologically through the eras into the eighties with shorter snippets of songs pieced together, allowing the show to get through an incredible 34 different songs.

You’ll get to hear everything from ABBA to Walk the Moon, including Bob Dylan, The Chordettes, Elton John, Elvis Presley, and Green Day.

“We have songs going all the way back to the fifties, and the most recent song is 2024. So there’s going to be songs that your 12- or 13-year-old might not recognize from the fifties. There’s definitely going to be songs that grandma is not going to recognize from 2024. So grandma should probably bring the 12-year-old so that they can tell each other about what is going on,” Grahame joked.

But it’s not just the songs that cross the generations, they also perform skits and jokes that find the perfect, delicate balance of being wholesome and family-friendly enough for the oldest and youngest in the crowd, while also pushing the line just enough to still be genuinely hilarious for everyone.

“We’ve got the numbers, but we also build a lot of the comedy ourselves,” Grahame said. “So it’s a really sort of do-it-yourself, put-it-all-together company experience that’s really pretty wonderful.”

The show runs at the Yates Memorial Theatre from August 7th to the 23rd with shows at 7:30pm every Tuesday to Saturday, and a 1pm matinee on Saturdays. You can get tickets on the New West Theatre website, or by calling 329-SEAT.