Doty was also involved in local theatre as a playwright and a producer, including a dramatized recreation of "The Donnelly Trial"—the 1880 trial of alleged ringleader James Carroll for the mob killing of the notorious Black Donnellys of Biddulph Township north of London near Lucan, Ontario, on February 4, 1880—in the same courtroom in London's historic courthouse (now the Middlesex County building) where the trial occurred 126 years ago. The play had two possible endings that a jury, made up of 12 audience members, could determine depending on their verdict.