Yes, We Can

by Dennis Johnson, Community Theatre Coordinator

One fairly basic definition of Community Theatre could include the words “theatre by the community, for the community.” Our directors, actors, technicians, and production staff are local—people who have put down roots in one community and practice their artistic inclinations in that place for an audience who is also rooted there. We are citizen artists. Professional performers are historically people on the road; it is a rare opportunity for them to put down roots in one community.

But can Community Theatre be “theatre of the community” as well? What is the source of the content of our productions? Are the stories we tell a product of our own experience? Do we encourage the work of local playwrights?

In October 2008, I attended the world premiere production of The Warrior Bard by Jonathan Lynn, a play about the Irish lyricist and musician Thomas Moore whose personal mandate was to engage in outreach, spreading knowledge about Irish culture beyond its boundaries–—a mandate very similar to that of the Toronto Irish Players, who produced the play. This was the first original play presented by T.I.P. in a long time, and represents a new paradigm in their role to interpret things Irish to a Canadian audience.

The Warrior Bard is history brought to life, with Thomas Moore’s music being the centrepiece. His life story is deftly told through his relationships with Lord Byron and Robert Emmet, two romantic nationalists—both of whom chose a different path in life—destined for martyrdom. Unlike many historical plays, The Warrior Bard is not a pageant or a docudrama, but an examination of one man’s memories and doubts, and the nature of his nationalism. This might be a play worth doing again.

In June 2008, the Kincardine Theatre Guild mounted a production of a play they did think was worth doing again. Hamish, by Michael Grant, was originally premiered in 2007 by the Elmira Theatre Company and entered in that year’s WODL Festival. Kincardine billed Hamish as “A Scottish Play” clearly appealing to that community’s Scottish roots. Elmira is famously rooted in Mennonite and German culture, but this play clearly spoke to their audience as well. The play is not about Scotland but about family.

Michael Grant started writing Hamish when he and his wife Sherry adopted their first son, a boy with no Scottish blood who was about to be raised in a world of Highland culture. (Have you ever been to Fergus?) Michael started examining his own roots and it led him to a hilarious story of a workaholic Canadian whose wife has forced him to take a vacation in the land of his ancestors, so she can tell him she is pregnant. Neither of them bargained for encountering the ghost of his ancestor, and the antics of the locals.

The Kincardine Theatre Guild was no stranger to plays with local content. In 2003, Kincardine mounted a new play by Sandy Conrad titled A Year In Edna’s Kitchen. Ian Burbidge wrote original music and songs for interludes. Though a fictional story, the play is set in the context of one of the most unnecessary rural tragedies in recent Canadian memory. In May 2000, an outbreak of E. coli in the water supply of Walkerton, Ontario killed at least seven people. Contamination from farm runoff was eventually identified as the reason why 2500 people became ill. Walkerton is about forty kilometres from Kincardine.

A Year in Edna’s Kitchen is a wonderful study of rural life—hockey moms, ambitious children, the delicate partnership of running a business and raising a family on a farm. Edna is a farm housewife whose family is growing up and moving away. Her future role is in turmoil and she opposes her husband’s plan to invest in a modern pig-farming operation. Month after month slips by (the calendar on the refrigerator keeps reminding us) until the news about Walkerton hits the radio in May. Suddenly everybody has to reassess their priorities.

A Year in Edna’s Kitchen was presented at the 2003 WODL Festival hosted by Galt Little Theatre. I still remember the man sitting in front of me, who turned to his companion at the end of the curtain call and said. ”Yup. That’s a keeper.” It was. In 2005, the Elora Community Theatre mounted a second production and played to sold-out houses for two weeks. In Fall 2008, Elora again revived an original play, You’re Lucky If You’re Killed, about small-town Canadian soldiers in World War I, written in 1933 by a local medical doctor, Norman McLeod Craig. A timely choice for the ninetieth anniversary of Armistice Day, and still as shocking as when it was first produced.

Perhaps the most successful example of a community theatre investing in original work, is Joan Burrows’ Staff Room. After three decades in the classroom, Joan had accumulated enough hilarious adventures to fill more than one play. In a generic staff room, peopled by teachers from any school, Joan (ever the good teacher) forces us to witness humans dealing with many issues—love, divorce, scandal, gossip, discrimination and, of course, pompous administrators.

After workshopping the play as a one-act, Joan submitted it to her home theatre, The Curtain Club in Richmond Hill. The rest is history. The Curtain Club’s production of Staff Room was selected by ACT-CO to be its representative in the 2004 Theatre Ontario Festival in Sault Ste. Marie, and won the Elsie Award for Best Production. In 2006, a second production of Staff Room was mounted by Kanata Theatre (host of this year’s Theatre Ontario Festival) and then a third by Theatre Guelph in the River Run Centre. Joan Burrows has gone on to study playwriting at Theatre Ontario Summer Courses, and is currently working on her fourth play.

If you are interested in any of the plays mentioned above, contact me at dennis@theatreontario.org and I will put you in touch with the authors. There must be many other plays recently premiered by community theatres, which also deserve a second look. If your company has one, let me know and I will get the word out. And if your community theatre is planning to premiere a new play, be sure we all find out about it. A play that speaks to one community will speak to another.

(This article first appeared in Theatre Ontario News in December 2008 / January 2009)