1990
1990-1999
Through the 90's we continued to participate in the One Act Play Festivals, while our full-length productions grew in scope and variety.
It became apparent that we were outgrowing the Seniors' Rec Centre, and we dreamed of leaving lights installed on a grid, a proper sound system, dressing rooms and maybe even some storage space. We felt we may have worn out our welcome at times. Peaksters resolved to build what eventually became the Sundre Arts Centre, but needed a separate society to build and administer it, lest it be seen as just for theatre. Sundre & District Arts Society was formed (comprised mostly of Peak Theatre members) and discussions, fundraising and planning began. By the end of the decade, we were in our new home.
1990
March
One Act Play/ADFA Festival
Scarecrow
by Don Nigro
Scarecrow was a seriously strange, eerie and sensuous one act play and great fun to work on.
March
Full Length Play
The Mousetrap
by Agatha Christie
Everyone knows about Agatha Christie, but we had no idea how much fun her scripts are to perform. The characters give you so much room to move and the stories are very engaging.
We took this show to Bowden as part of their dinner theatre.
June
Full Length Play
Arms And The Man
by George Benard Shaw
This play was another dinner theatre and our first to be performed in the round with arena seating. It was an opportunity to move off the stage and into a three dimensional world.
October
Alberta Teachers' Association Convention
Commissioned Work
Teaching 101
by Brian Bailey
The Convention Board just kept inviting us back. They gave us a great audience and fee.
November/December
Full Length Play
Arsenic & Old Lace
by Joseph Kesselring
Arsenic and Old Lace was first written for the Broadway stage in 1939. It is best known as the Frank Capra/Cary Grant comedy movie. It was a great script to work on!
1991
March
One Act Play/ADFA
Festival
Would You Like a Cup of Tea entered the Regional Festival but was overshadowed by The Komagata Maru Incident.
The Komagata Maru Incident, written by Calgarian Sharon Pollack, is actually a full-length play, written without an interval. We found the story so disturbing and compelling that we wanted to share it at the ADFA Festival. To get through the script in less than 60 minutes as specified in the rules, we set a breakneck pace, just made the time limit and won the Provincial awards for Outstanding Costuming, Most Outstanding Direction, Most Outstanding Actor and Most Outstanding Play.
Would You Like A Cup Of Tea
by Warren Graves
The Komagata
Maru Incident
by Sharon Pollock
June
Full Length Play
Return Engagements
by Bernard Slade
We chose this play to celebrate our tenth anniversary for several reasons. It is beautifully written, funny and celebrates the passage of time and our evolution through it.
We held a gala night, with champagne and special meal included.
OctoberNovember
Full Length Play
Terra Nova
by Ted Tally
We learned so much working on Terra Nova about the excursion, the technologies and the hardships humans can and can't endure. Wearing full snow suits on a well-lit stage was only one of our hardships.
New staging techniques such as diffuse lighting and use of a scrim helped make this unique.
What we were most pleased to learn is that you can have so much fun working on such a tragic play.
December
Kids' Christmas Show
at the Elks Hall
Over The River
by Brian Bailey
1992
February
Full Length Play
Gone To Glory
by Suzanne Findlay
This was a touching little story, remembered by some for experiences with aging makeup techniques. There are remarkable effects and after effects of creating a mask from liquid latex.
March
One Act Play/ADFA
Festival
The Dumb Waiter
by Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter is well know for his moody plays, and The Dumb Waiter introduced us to the Pinter Pause: actors don't speak for extended periods, but must fill the voids emotionally.
We attended the Regionals in Airdrie this year as the Heartland Zone had collapsed.
June
Full Length Play
Move Over,
Mrs. Markham
by Ray Cooney & John Chapman
This was a very popular bedroom farce in the nineties, featuring impersonations, sneaking behind curtains and improvisations. Some were even written into the script.
It was another June dinner theatre.
October
Full Length Play
Appointment With Death
by Agatha Christie
We wanted to present a variety of theatre genres, and a whodunit was part of our loose rotation. When that time came, we always considered staging the Grande Dame.
This play is a particularly moody one, featuring the tyrannical Mrs Boynton and her downtrodden family.
December
Kids' Christmas Show
at the Elks Hall
Phineas Fillpot Finds A Friend
by Brian Bailey
1993
February/March/August
One Act Play/ADFA
Festival
We sent two strong and somewhat bizarre plays to the One Act Festival this year. In the end, A Slight Ache went to Provincials and was awarded Best Actor, Best Direction and Best Production. As a prize, A Slight Ache was given a birth at the Edmonton International Fringe Festival. We found ourselves in Acacia Hall, a tight, hot little venue. Houses grew throughout the festival until an excellent review in the Edmonton Journal helped us close with sold out performances.
As an aside, Darrell realized he needed to distress and soil his costume to help create his character of the match seller. He was renting digs on a chicken farm at the time, and we were revolted by the sight and smell of his filthy apparel.
The American Dream
by Edward Albee
A Slight Ache
Harold Pinter
June
Full Length Play
Relative Values
by Noel Coward
This was our first Noel Coward play and we loved his wit and style.
We decided we needed a tile floor look in the set, and our set designer diligently painted the hardboard outside in winter and moved it into our storage shed with some space heaters to dry. Days later when the paint appeared to have dried we installed it on stage. Next day there was an angry call about gas fumes in the building and that two carpet bowlers had been rushed to hospital, overcome by fumes. The paint had apparently frozen, not dried. When it thawed it was still very sticky and stinky. The seniors were soon released from hospital without harm.
It was our June dinner theatre.
October
Full Length Play
The Melville Boys
by Norm Foster
The Melville Boys was an important show for us, partially because it introduced us to our favourite Canadian playwright, Norm Foster.
We constructed one of our most rustic sets primarily out of pine log cabin siding. Construction was challenging, because we had to disassemble and erect the set and tech gear for several shows in Bowden and Red Deer, where we had good houses.
December
Full Length Play
Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen's Guild Dramatic Society's Production of
A Christmas Carol
David Mcgillivray & Walter Zerlin
We took a year off from our kids' Christmas show primarily because we found this deliciously funny spoof. We had some technical issues where our sound effects cassette tape jammed, but we quickly hooked up a microphone and recreated the sounds live backstage.
1994
March
Full Length Play
And Then There Were None
by Agatha Christie
This is perhaps Christie's most well-know play, and the characters, plot and mood demonstrate why.
June
Full Length Play
Opening Night
by Norm Foster
Our second Foster, this one involving one of our favourite obsessions: theatre. There were some memorable lines: "Sweatin' first thing in the mornin', sweatin' through lunch, sweatin' through the scorch of the afternoon, sweatin' through dinnertime, even sweatin' in your bed when the sun ain't nowhere to be found. Sweatin', sweatin', sweatin'."
And "Do you have an escort?" "No, a Toyota."
October/November
Full Length Play
Hunter Of Peace
by Sharon Stearns
One of the great things about theatre is exploring the background stories. We all became fascinated by the tales of Bill Peyto, Mary Schaffer and the other pioneers of the Canadian Rockies.
Another exciting thing about theatre is the organic nature of set building. There was a fair amount of deadwood used, and after a day or two of warm indoor temperatures the hives of ants ventured forth to explore their new home, the Seniors' Rec Centre.
December
Kids' Christmas Play
Lemmings' Christmas
by Bailey
This was to be our final kids' Christmas show. It appears that lemmings really do jump off of a cliff and into the sea.
1995
March
One Act Play/ADFA
Festival
The Madness of Lady Bright
by Lanford Wilson
This was a disturbing story which Ed Longwill wanted to undertake for the festival. He walked away with the Provincial Best Actor award, but we fell short of Outstanding Production.
March
Full Length Play
Rough Crossing
by Tom Stoppard
Our second full length Stoppard was about theatre folk and was set on a luxurious art deco style ocean liner. While not considered a true musical, there were songs as characters rehearsed their roles en-route to New York.
May/June
Full Length Play
The Importance Of Being Earnest
by Oscar Wilde
We performed The Importance of Being Earnest in the round at the Seniors' Rec Centre. Audience risers were constructed to improve sight lines for those in the back rows.
Half the shows were dinner, half dessert buffets.
Work would soon commence on the Arts Centre.
November
Full Length Play
The Long Weekend
by Norm Foster
This was another Foster, with his signature self-deprecating humour, human characters and stories.
1996
March
Full Length Play
The Lion In Winter
by James Goldman
This was our only play set in the medieval period. We learned lots about the machinations of royalty and about using crepe hair.
May/June
Full Length Play
Tribute
by Bernard Slade
Tribute was one of our earliest plays, and the first one we remounted. We still loved the characters and the story.
We did learn early in our occupancy of the Seniors' Rec Centre to do our messy and dusty work outside, and they were (mostly) very patient with us. Sadly, there was one cut that needed to be done on the set, a power saw was used, but the blade guard stuck open. The saw was set down on the recently replaced floor and scooted about a foot, leaving a tidy but permanent scar.
November
Full Length Play
Broken Up
by Nick Hall
This was a light-weight script which had a few laughs and an excellent tequila party scene.
1997
March
Full Length Play
Jake's Woman
by Neil Simon
This was Ed Longwill's last dramatic role, as he was beginning his struggle with cancer.
June
Full Length Play
Hotel Paradiso
by Georges Feydeau
Hotel Paradiso was a very fun Feydeau farce to work on. We had actors as young ten years of age in the cast.
It was our final production staged in the beloved Seniors' Hall and one of our last dinner theatres.
1998
Peak Theatre Players and various community members spent thousands of hours constructing the Sundre Arts Centre. We decided as a group that we would suspend doing theatre so that we could build a theatre.
1999
March
Full Length Play
Noises Off
by Michael Frayn
We had been itching to do this play for years, and now that we were in the Arts Centre we could actually build a two story, revolving set. So we did. The itch was scratched and it was a perfect introduction to our new stage.
June
Full Length Play
Ladies of the Camellias
by Lillian Groag
Ladies of the Camellias was a unique script, passionate and intelligent, with beautiful words. The theatre personalties and lifestyles of this era were an eye-opener.
This was another dinner theatre/dessert buffet option.
November
Full Length Play
Office Hours
by Norm Foster
Another Foster! This script was very cleverly conceived and designed, the characters so unique and memorable.
Y2K was just around the corner, so we had to have some fun while the world still existed.
