Williams Lake Studio Theatre is proud to host Theatre BC's Central Interior Zone
Drama Festival from May 24th to 27th. The Festival is an annual event and
involves community theatre groups from Williams Lake to Prince George. We
invite you to come experience some amazing plays at the Studio Theatre in
Glendale School.
This year we have 5 plays competing: two from Williams Lake, two from Prince
George and one from Quesnel.
Wednesday, May 24th sees Brian Clark's "Whose Life Is It Anyway?" kick off our
festival. This moving drama is directed by Brad McGuire and presented by the
Williams Lake Studio Theatre. A brilliant battle of wits takes place in this
extraordinary play. Ken Harrison, a successful sculptor, is paralyzed in a car
accident and kept alive by support systems in a hospital. Outwardly he's
cheerful and often very funny, but he's overwhelmed by the fact that he has lost
control of his own life. As the play begins, he is coming to the decision that
if he can't live as a man, he does not want to exist as a medical achievement.
His physician, however, is utterly determined to preserve Ken's life, regardless
of its quality.
On Thursday, May 25th, "Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s Welcome to the Monkey House",
dramatized by Christopher Sergel comes to the stage. Williams Lake Studio
Theatre director, Todd Sullivan, brings these four eclectic stories to life. The
Time's literary critic describes Vonnegut as "...a zany but moral mad scientist
at the controls of a literary time machine. He is George Orwell, Dr. Caligari
and Flash Gordon compounded into one writer. Though Vonnegut is knocking a
misplaced sense of values by showing the horrifying results, he's doing it with
an irreverent chuckle."
Prince George Theatre Workshop brings Michael Frayn's"Copenhagen" to Williams
Lake on Friday, May 26th. Alison Haley directs this Tony Award winning play. It
is an explosive reimagining of the mysterious wartime meeting between two Nobel
laureates to discuss the atomic bomb. They were old friends and colleagues but
now the world has changed and they were on opposite sides in a world war. They
meet once again in Copenhagen to look for answers and to work out- just as they
had worked out the internal functioning of an atom- how we can ever know why we
do what we do.
Saturday, May 27th, is a very busy day. At 12:30, Earl Tourangeau brings
Quesnel's Second Hand Theatre to town to perform David Ives' "Sure Thing". This
one act gem gives a couple that second chance to say the right thing. The final
performance is "Closer" by Patrick Marber. Dominic MaGuire and the Prince
George Theatre Workshop explore a brutal anatomy of modern romance where a
quartet of stangers meet, fall in love, and become caught up in a web of sexual
desire and betrayal. "Closer" is for adult audiences.
The doors open at 7:30 pm with the curtain at 8:00 pm for the evening
performances. Douglas Newell, our adjudicator, will follow each performance
with a brief critique. This well be followed up with a more in depth discussion
with each play's cast and crew the following day. Newell, who is working in
theatre professionally, will be responsible for choosing the "Best of..." awards
at the Final NIght Party Saturday night. Included in this is the award for Best
Production which will represent our Zone in Maple Ridge at the provincial
competition, Mainstage.
Tickets are $10 per performance, or all five plays for $40. They are available
at Craig Smith's About Face Photography and the Boitanio Mall Ticket Center.
All of you are invited to the critiques, the plays and the parties. Come join
us for some "CIZ-ling" theatre nights.
All Theatre BC members are invited to the Central Interior Zone Annual General
Meeting being held in Williams Lake at Boston Pizza. This is on Sunday, May
28th from noon until 1:00.
We will be electing new executive members (Chair, Vice-Chair, Treasurer and
Secretary) and voting on a motion to turn our account over to Theatre BC to
manage. We will maintain use of it through a deposit card, but all the billing
will go through Theatre BC. This allows for more accountability when it comes
to the Gaming Funds.
For those of you in the play on Saturday night, your Coffee Critique is on
Sunday at 9:30 to 11:30, and if you win the Zone, your winning workshop starts
at 1:30. We've made sure there are no time conflicts.
Looking forward to seeing you there.
And one more thing...
Please send any nominations for the "Incredible Mr. Wilson Award" to Sheryl-Lynn
Lewis at sheryllynn.lewis@sd27.bc.ca
This award honours someone who has done great things for community theatre at
the Zone level.