Flagstaff Players

Returning to the stage!

/ edebock / 4 Comments

For many years, community theatre was a big part of my life, but the last time I was on the stage was pre-COVID. By the time the pandemic restrictions were lifted and our local theatre group began working on another play, I had moved on to other pursuits. For their next two plays, I was a member of the audience which definitely felt weird! 

Then early last fall there was an audition call that I absolutely could not pass up. For twenty years or more, the group had been talking about doing a musical, but we just didn’t have the talent necessary to pull it off. That has changed, however, and Flagstaff Players had finally decided to tackle Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. I didn’t even stop to think about whether or not I could fit this into my schedule. I had to do it!

I am not particularly musical, but I can carry a tune in a group and I’ll be singing in the women’s chorus. This is the largest cast we’ve ever had and I have the honour of being the oldest member! For me, one of the the greatest joys of acting in community theatre has been sharing the stage with some of my former students. This time, not only am I doing that, but the youngest member of the women’s chorus is the teenage daughter of a former student! Does that make me feel old? Not really! Being part of a production like this absolutely energizes me and I didn’t realize until this week that I’m probably old enough to be the mother or grandmother of every other member of the chorus! That’s okay; I’m sure there were older women in Canaan and Egypt. After all, Joseph lived to be 110 and his father, Jacob, died at 147!

There are a lot of superstitions connected with the theatre. Many stage actors swear that a bad dress rehearsal means that opening night will go well. Our final dress rehearsal on Wednesday wasn’t bad, but there were certainly some little glitches that we are keen to correct. Tonight is opening night and we are ready! We’ll be doing four shows in total; two this weekend and two next. If you’re local, I hope to see you there!  

Onstage again!

/ edebock / 4 Comments

Over my many years of involvement in community theatre one of the greatest joys for me has been sharing the stage with former students. Some of them even got their first taste of acting in my junior high drama classes. Never did I imagine, however, that I would someday act in a play written by one of them!

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❤  This photo absolutely warms my heart. On my right, is my former student Kelly Berg, author of Silent Jim, in his lead role of Marshall Henry Jackson. Standing on my left, in the role of Jesse Longstrand, the blacksmith, is a young man I’ve known since he was a preschooler. I taught him Sunday School back in those days!

Silent Jim is a western murder mystery with a mix of intensely serious moments and hilariously funny ones. Thursday evening was opening night. We performed again on Friday and have two more shows next weekend. Our cast of 23 ranges from preteen actors trying out the stage for the very first time to seasoned veterans like myself.

Cast photo

Cast photo: Brenda Grove

I have a very small onstage role this year. In fact, I only have nine lines to deliver! Silent Jim is set in the small fictional town of Buffalo Skull in the American west in the late 1870s. In the original version, my character was a judge but, like any western, the play has a lot of roles for male actors and far fewer for females. We had to do a bit of adjusting. There were no female judges in the US in the 1870s, but the first female lawyer, Arabella Mansfield, was called to the Iowa bar in 1869. We could change our judge’s role to that of a lawyer and remain authentic to the time we were portraying. Our lady lawyer needed a name, however, and that’s an interesting side story.

One of the aspects of theatre that I absolutely love is the costuming, especially when we’re doing a period play. What would a lady lawyer have worn in the 1870s, I wondered. I turned to the internet in search of photos and as so often happens when I’m online, I ended up going down a variety of interesting and unrelated rabbit trails. One of them led me to an amazing find; my grandmother’s 1909 graduation photo from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia! 

Gran - Eliza Clara Walker - BA Dalhousie University 1909

Though the photo is apparently signed “Lizzie Walker. Dal. 09.” I know that Gran’s full maiden name was Eliza Clara Walker and that later in life she chose to use her middle name. Though hers wasn’t a law degree, there weren’t a lot of university educated women in her day and I thought it would be a wonderful idea to honour her memory by naming my character after her. My fellow thespians agreed and so I became Clara Walker, Esquire!

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In addition to my small onstage role, I also act as prompter for the first three quarters of the play. I was surprised to discover that I really enjoy that position as I’m fully involved in every moment of the show.

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Curtain call photo: Caity Moore, Clouded Creations

 

With script in hand

/ edebock / 9 Comments

Community theatre has been an important part of my life for a very long time. I first took to the stage in the late 1970s playing Bob Cratchit in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol followed by the Empress in a stage play of Hans Christian Anderson’s tale, The Emperor’s New Clothes. Then came many years of raising a family and being too busy to perform.

The stage called my name again in 2002. My children were grown and I was going through a low spot in my own life. I needed to do something that was just for me, so I auditioned for a part in the old Christmas classic, It’s a Wonderful Life. Returning to the stage after such a long hiatus, I expected a bit part, but instead I was cast in one of the lead roles! I played Mary Bailey, wife of the main character, George.

My love of acting returned full force and I was completely hooked! Over the ensuing years, I’ve played many and varied roles in local theatre productions. In 2003, I was Vera in a female version of The Odd Couple and in 2005, Doris in The Cemetery Club. The story of three Jewish widows in their 50s who meet once a month for tea before going to visit their husbands’ graves, this was definitely one of my favourites. The picture quality is terrible, but that’s me (aka Doris) on the left. The guy with the beard is my husband, Richard. We’ve always had difficulty finding enough men to fill the male roles, so we roped him in and he’s been in several plays with me.

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The following year, the role that I was least happy to be cast in probably became my most memorable! I was Vonga, the jungle girl, in Jack Sharkey’s hilarious comedy, One Toe in the Grave. Even though it wasn’t the role I wanted, I decided to have fun with it. I made my own costume and still have it hidden away.

Vonga - One Toe in the Grave

In 2007, I was acting as assistant director for Arsenic and Old Lace, a classic comedy, when at close to the last minute, the actress cast in one of the lead roles wasn’t able to perform. With little time to learn the lines, I stepped in and became Abby Brewster, one of the somewhat eccentric but seemingly genteel elderly sisters who made it their mission to help lonely bachelors die happy by serving them elderberry wine spiked with arsenic! Here I am sharing the stage with two of my former students. Again, that’s me on the left.

Arsenic and Old Lace

In 2009, we brought A Christmas Carol back to the local stage. This time I played a couple of small parts. Then in 2012, just before leaving to spend a semester teaching English in China, I had a bit part in W.O. Mitchell’s The Black Bonspiel of Wullie MacCrimmon. Again, here I am sharing the stage with two of my former students!

The Black Bonspiel of Wullie MacCrimmon

Acting with former students, some who I taught drama to when they were in junior high, has definitely been one of the joys of participating in small town theatre!

Over the past few years, I’ve intensely missed performing. Though I’ve helped out behind the scenes on a couple of productions, travel and health restrictions have kept me off the stage. Once again, though, I’m at a point where I feel like I need to do something just for me and this time, the timing is perfect! We’ve just begun to prepare for four performances of Auntie Mame in early April. Life has been stressful lately and it’s been a few years since I’ve had to learn a lot of lines. I’m not sure how well that would go, so I’m delighted with my role as servant, Norah Muldoon. With many entrances and exits, I appear off and on throughout the play, but I don’t have any lengthy scenes or long speeches to memorize. Even so, I’ll be spending lots of time over the coming weeks with my script in hand!

So why am I so passionate about the theatre? We thespians are an interesting breed and it’s always a privilege to work with such a creative, talented and fun group of people! It takes many people working behind the scenes to put a production together and in a small town amateur group like ours, people often fill many different roles. Actors can often be found working on set construction, sewing costumes or setting up tables and chairs for the dinner theatre performances. Putting on a play is a lot of work but it’s worth it all when the lights go up, the play begins and we feel the audience respond. What a rush! I’m essentially a very shy person but when I’m onstage, I get to be someone else and it is so much fun! After all, where else would I dare appear in a teeny tiny jungle girl costume?