The Lampman High School (LHS) Theatre crew recently got back from the Provincial Drama Festival in Regina, where they won a list of accolades, including silver for runner up best overall production.
LHS Theatre performed a play called Circus Fire, which teacher and theatre director Christine Branyik-Thornton described as a physically demanding movement piece with music, or a long theatre dance.
“The play is based on true events, which is the 1944 Hartford, Connecticut Ringling Brothers Circus that took place July 6, 1944, where the tent caught fire and there were 8,000 people in the tent - 197 people died and 167 of them were children,” she said.
“It’s a tragic comedy…so what we did is, it centralizes around a character called The Little Girl, who’s based on Little Miss 1565; this little girl is six years old and she was one that perished in the fire and her body as never claimed.
“She died of asphyxiation, so she didn’t really have any marks on her body, so it was always a mystery as to what happened and why this little girl never got claimed.”
Branyik-Thornton added the show is so demanding and difficult it hasn’t been performed by many other theatre companies, and some of her actors lost as much as 10 pounds during rehearsals and performances because of the amount of movement the play requires.
She’s had the show, which was written by one of her theatre school friends in 2003, on the back burner for a number of years, and finally decided to attempt it this year because she felt had the right cast to pull it off.
It was a gamble, she said, because of the emotional content and challenging choreography, but it paid off in the end and even afforded them leaping standing ovations from the audience, which she said is rare.
“In fact we had many people come up to us after the show and say they had never seen anything like it, that they were crying by the end of it,” she said.
Aside from the ovations, moving audience members to tears, and the runner up best overall production, LHS Theatre members also received a number of medals and certificates for their efforts.
These include: the Debbie Baker Cheer Award, Hayley Dechaine; Tech Certificate of Merit, Brandon Miller for Sound; Tech Certificate of Merit, Hayley Dechaine for Stage Management; Tech Certificate of Merit, Kaitlin Stephens for Props/Fishing Rod Operation.
Acting Certificate of Merit, Cassidy Roy for the role of The Little Girl; Acting Certificate of Merit, Carter Branyik-Thornton for the role of The Soldier/Hobo Clown; Technical Excellence Medal, Landon Vinck on Followspot; Technical Excellence Medal, Jacob Kautz on Followspot; Best Technical Crew, CIRCUS FIRE;Best Technical Production Runner-Up, CIRCUS FIRE
Branyik-Thornton said it feels good to receive all the kudos and her actors were grateful for the positive feedback, but when it comes right down to it, they do it for the love of theatre and not for praise.
“We know when we do a good show and I think we are very process driven at Lampman; we want to give ourselves a challenge and in the end we want to reach a goal that we set for ourselves and we did that with this show,” she said.
She added LHS Theatre would like to thank the Lampman community for the support and fundraising that helped get them to the Provincial Drama Festival.
