Ross Petty

Ross Petty, born August 29, 1946, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, is a Canadian actor and theatre producer whose career has spanned stage, film, television, and animation across multiple decades.

Before establishing himself in North America, Petty performed in Europe, singing at Le Lido in Paris and appearing alongside Betty Grable in the London West End musical Belle Starr. He subsequently built a stage career in the United States, making his Broadway debut in Arthur Kopit's Wings and later starring in the title role of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, a production directed by Hal Prince. Both Wings and Sweeney Todd were among his Broadway credits between 1979 and 1982. He also toured nationally in Cole Porter's Anything Goes, co-starring with Ginger Rogers and Sid Caesar. His television work includes a recurring role as Eddie Dorrance on the soap opera All My Children, as well as appearances on Perry Mason, Spenser: For Hire, Monk, Forever Knight, Night Heat, Seeing Things, Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, Counterstrike, Traders, and Martha Inc: The Martha Stewart Story, among others. His film credits include Extreme Measures, featuring Gene Hackman and Hugh Grant, F/X2, and A Judgement in Stone. Petty also contributed voice work to numerous animated series, among them X-Men: The Animated Series, Redwall, The Adventures of Tintin, Little Bear, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Rupert, Pippi Longstocking, and Rescue Heroes.

In 1984, Petty made his first appearance in holiday pantomimes staged at the Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto, co-starring with his wife, Karen Kain, in Dick Whittington and his Cat. Those productions had been organized by British producer Paul Elliott, who had been importing traditional English pantomimes to Toronto since the early 1980s. Petty began co-producing the shows with Elliott in 1986 and continued in that capacity until Elliott withdrew from the Toronto market in 1996.

That same year, Petty founded Ross Petty Productions and began staging his own annual holiday productions at the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre in Toronto, running typically from late November through early January. He described these shows as "Fractured Fairy Tale Musicals," rooting them in the British pantomime tradition while adapting them for Canadian audiences through original scripts, all-Canadian casts, and references to current local and popular culture. His productions retained pantomime elements such as broad comedy, fourth-wall breaks, audience participation, and a man in a dress, though Petty dropped the convention of the principal boy while keeping the pantomime dame. He also directed his writers to present female characters such as Cinderella and Snow White as assertive and independent rather than passive. From 1996 through 2015, Petty himself appeared in each production as the villain, a role typically performed in drag. He retired from performing after the 2015 production of Peter Pan but remained active as a producer. In 2006, he took a revival of his 2004 Aladdin production on a cross-Canada tour, with stops in Vancouver, Edmonton, Regina, Saskatoon, Calgary, Toronto, and Ottawa, featuring former professional wrestler Bret Hart. The 2017 production of A Christmas Carol was later broadcast on Family Channel and CBC and released on DVD.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of Petty's planned 2020 Aladdin production; in its place, an online revue titled There's No Place Like Home For The Holidays was presented. The 2021 production, Alice in Winterland, was similarly staged virtually. Petty announced that the 2022 production, Peter's Final Flight: The Pan-Tastical Family Musical, would be the company's last, and he returned to the stage as the villain for that final show.

In March 2024, Canadian Stage announced it would revive the annual panto series, with The Wizard of Oz scheduled at the Winter Garden Theatre from December 2024 into January 2025, billing the series as a "Ross Petty Panto" and crediting Petty as executive producer emeritus. Canadian Stage subsequently announced a 2025–2026 production of Robin Hood, scheduled for 45 performances at the Winter Garden.

Petty's productions earned praise from Toronto theatre critics for making live theatre accessible to families and for introducing children to theatrical performance, with critics including J. Kelly Nestruck of the Toronto Star noting the relative scarcity of family-friendly live entertainment options in Toronto. The shows were also recognized for their inclusion of drag performance. However, the productions drew criticism for product placement from corporate sponsors, which Petty defended as financially necessary given that his for-profit company was ineligible for government arts funding. His casting practices also faced criticism for a lack of racial diversity, and in 2020 Petty issued a public apology acknowledging the need for more inclusive casting.