A large crowd was on hand for the opening of the TheatreFest 2018 provincial competition for community theatres, hosted by Weyburn’s Crocus 80 Theatre group, with dignitaries providing remarks before the first play was performed at the Cugnet Centre.
Crocus 80 presented an all-youth cast for the play, “And A Child Shall Lead”, which was greeted by a standing ovation at the conclusion.
The play, written by Canadian playwright Michael Slade, told the stories of children who were interred in a Nazi concentration camp at Terezin, Czechoslovakia.
Over the course of the week, one play is performed each evening at the Cugnet Centre, followed by a Green Room reception at the Tommy Douglas Centre, along with five different drama workshops hosted by Theatre Saskatchewan, and adjudication provided by Gordon Portman the day after each performance.
Indian Head’s Stage Left Players presented “On A First Name Basis” on Monday evening, and the Moose Jaw Community Players performed “The Melville Boys” on Tuesday evening.
The Regina Little Theatre will perform “Bedtime Stories” tonight, April 4, with Yorkton’s PaperBag Players performing “Buying the Moose” on Thursday, Balgonie’s Tumbleweed Theatre putting on “Exit Laughing” on Friday, and the week will be wrapped up on Saturday evening by the Battlefords Community Players, who will present “For The Pleasure of Seeing Her Again”.
After the final play, the awards for the week-long performance of dramas will be presented, and the final Green Room will be held with the theme of “Phantom of the Opera”.
At the opening ceremonies, Mayor Marcel Roy brought greetings from the City of Weyburn, welcoming the audience and the participating theatre groups to the week-long festival of plays.
“There’s so much work that goes into a play. I was in a play a few years ago, and there was so much work behind the scenes to make it possible, as well as by the performers,” he said.
A long-time supporter of the arts and former mayor Isabelle Butters also spoke, noting the adjudicator, Gordon Portman, used to live in Weyburn many years ago as his father was the pastor at All Saints Anglican Church here.
“I knew his folks very well,” she said. “We are fortunate enough to have a group of people who want to keep drama alive in Weyburn. I certainly hope all of you will come back and enjoy this week.”
Donna Challis, president of Theatre Saskatchewan, noted her community hosted TheatreFest recently and they know all about the hard work that has gone into hosting such an event, and said this festival features seven of the roughly 50 community theatre groups who offer live theatre in their towns.
At the conclusion of the play, Portman offered some comments about the performance, noting many of the poems and characters were real historical figures who were interred in the camp at Terezin.
“You were hearing the voices of the children of the camp from over 70 years ago, and I think it’s a real credit to Crocus 80 that they found this play and thought it worth presenting, keeping the memories of these people alive,” he said, noting they were the memories of “children who were forced to face adult circumstances they should never had to face.”
Portman noted that in this day and age, it was remarkable that “we have children leading the way, and showing us as adults how to fight and have courage.”
While many of the plays which follow through the week are lighter in vein, he said audiences will still be able to take life lessons from those drama presentations as well.
At the adjudication, held on Monday morning at the Microtel Hotel, Portman said, “What’s cool about bringing a piece like this to the festival is you never know what kind of effect seeing a piece like this will have on someone.”
He likened the impact of a play like to dropping a pebble in a pond, and the ripples expand outwards, and said, “I think it’s an act of courage to do something like this, and an act of faith to do something like this.”
Director Connie Nightingale noted the youth cast spent a lot of time doing research about the Second World War, and in particular, about Jews who were interred in concentration camps by the Nazis and subsequently killed, and about these specific characters on whose poems, drawings and stories this play was based.
Portman noted it was poignant to see children being children in the face of such dire circumstances, and teenagers being teenagers, such as one scene where two girls talked about their interest in boys, and the interest of boys in them.
The adjudication of each play is open to the public to attend, and will be held at 10:30 a.m. the day after the performance at Microtel.
