Organizers of TheatreFest, the provincial theatre competition, are asking for volunteers to step forward to help them out during the week-long festival of community theatre in Weyburn on April 1-8 at the Cugnet Centre.
Freda Lautner and Connie Nightingale of Crocus 80 Theatre, which is hosting TheatreFest, brought the need for volunteers to the Rotary Club at their luncheon meeting, and are hoping to find people willing to lend a hand for the festival.
Some of the areas that volunteers are needed for include preparation of food, decorating the T.C. Douglas Centre, taking tickets and ushering at the Cugnet Centre, acting as a host or hostess in the green room at the T.C. Douglas Centre each evening, or driving the shuttle van for the community theatre groups who will be attending.
The green room is a hospitality room that will be set up in the lower level of the T.C. Douglas Centre after each night’s drama performance, where the cast and crew from each drama will gather and the public can mingle and meet them.
TheatreFest’s theme for the week is “Broadway This Way!”, and each night the green room will have a different theme based on a Broadway play. The first night’s theme is “Grease” (on the night of the Crocus 80 play), followed by “The Great Gatsby”, “Cabaret”, “Chicago”, “Rocky Horror Show”, “Oklahoma!” and lastly, “Phantom of the Opera”.
The shuttle van, which is being supplied by Barber Motors, will bring people from the Microtel Hotel to the Cugnet Centre, from the Cugnet Centre to the T.C. Douglas Centre, and back to Microtel again, and volunteer drivers are needed to provide this service each day.
For those who volunteer, they will receive a lanyard and will have access to everything that day, including the play and the green room after-party. There are also workshops being put on by Theatre Saskatchewan which are free to attend, but preregistration will be needed.
There will be five workshops that focus on different areas of play production: on Monday will be an Intro to Directing with Mark Claxton; on Tuesday, Stage Combat with Ryland Alexander; on Wednesday, Clowning, with Kenn McLeod; on Thursday, Intro to Playwriting with Gordon Portman; and on Friday, the workshop will focus on Voice with Kris Alvarez.
All of the plays presented through the week will be professionally adjudicated by Gordon Portman, with all adjudications to be held at the Microtel Inn the morning following the presentation on stage. Rotary member Brenda King pointed out that Portman grew up in Weyburn as his father was an Anglican minister here for a number of years.
The plays are as follows, starting with the play on the first night presented by Weyburn’s Crocus 80 Theatre, is “And a Child Shall Lead”, written by Michael Slade, and featuring youth performers, including the Rotary Club’s exchange student, Liza Biard.
On Monday, the play from Indian Head’s Stage Left Players is “On A First Name Basis”, by Norm Foster; the play on Tuesday is by the Moose Jaw Community Players, called “The Melville Boys”, by Norm Foster; on Wednesday, the Regina Little Theatre will present “Bedtime Stories”, by Norm Foster; on Thursday, the PaperBag Players will perform “Buying The Moose”, by Michael G. Wilmot; the play on Friday, by the Tumbleweed Theatre, is “Exit Laughing”, written by Paul Elliott. The final play, on Saturday, by the Battlefords Community Players, is “For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again”, by Michel Tremblay.
Nightingale explained the Crocus 80 play is based on a true account of children in a Nazi holding camp during the Second World War, based in Czechoslovakia in 1942.
“It’s a very heart-warming and totally inspiring story,” she said.
To volunteer for any position noted, those interested are asked to contact any member of Crocus 80, or email to crocus80theatre@gmail.com.
Tickets are available for the week of TheatreFest, costing $85 for a pass for the week or single-show tickets at $20 each, and can be bought online at Picatic, or at Music Craft in Weyburn.
