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Lampman School students travel to drama festival

Students from Lampman School’s drama department travelled to Indian Head on March 23 for a drama festival, and despite the weather it turned out to be a great event for the students.
Lampman School
Lampman School drama club memebers who travelled to a drama festival were, front row, from left, Morgan Scott, Jacob Kautz. Back row, Christine Branyik-Thornton, Bohden Smyth, Aydan Nobert, Gavin Fleck, Matthew Getschel, Alexis Christensen. Middle Row, left to right, Cheyenne Siebert, Cassidy Roy, Adrianna Raynard, Callista Lockerby, Hayley Dechaine.

Students from Lampman School’s drama department travelled to Indian Head on March 23 for a drama festival, and despite the weather it turned out to be a great event for the students.

The play that the Lampman School performed was Coop Dreams and it was the first time it had been performed in Saskatchewan. Christine Branyik-Thornton, who has been involved with the school’s drama program for years, said she was very impressed with how well the kids preformed.

“The play was written a number of years ago, and it was written about marginalized people. The play focuses on two sisters growing up in Alberta during the 1950s,” said Branyik-Thornton.

“They are very poor and have to move into a chicken coop. The two daughters are different from each other, with one being very happy and loving and the other being more aware of how harsh the world can be.”

Other important characters in the play are the mother of the two sisters, and one of the sisters’ boyfriends. The play told a story of overcoming hardship.

 “The kids we had preforming in the play were between … of Grades 9 through 12, and we have two really great performers, Cassidy Roy and Adrianna Raynard, who will be finishing school this year and moving onto post-secondary school,” said Branyik-Thornton.

Branyik-Thornton had a very interesting experience when in Indian Head, as the roads quickly became treacherous due to the storm. One group could not make it to their hotel.

“The snow storm made a mess of things and some of the schools, as soon as they finished performing, went home quickly while it was still light outside, and I think that was probably a good call,” said Branyik-Thornton.

“We were in Indian Head at the time and that storm was worse the more north you were of Lampman, and one group had to actually stay overnight because one group could not get to their hotel in White City so they had to sleep on the floor in sleeping bags,” she added.

Getting the kids from her region and Lampman School into the drama festival was difficult because the province is spilt up into 12 drama regions and in order to participate, each school had to have a certain number of kids. 

“There are 12 regions in the province for the drama festivals and we are normally in Region 1, and Region 1 didn’t have enough participants this year. You have to have five different plays being performed, there was only four, that meant we moved to Plan B, which was groups that wanted to participate in Region 1 Drama Festival would have to go to a different drama festival,” said Branyik-Thornton.

Coop Dreams won numerous awards at the festival, including runner-up for best overall production and best visual production, and it took top spot for best technical production.

Individual award winners were: Bob Hinnett Technical Excellence Award to Callista Lockerby for the Shadow Puppet Master, Mary Ellen Burgess Best Actor to Adrianna Rarynard, acting medal of excellence to Cassidy Roy, and runner-up for best stage manager to Hayley Dunchaine. An acting certificate of merit went to Aydan Nobert, and technical awards of merit went to Ethan Niebergall for sound, Cheyenne Siebert (lighting), Gavin Fleck (music) and Micah Walbaum (music), Hayley Duchaine was named the unsung hero.

Branyik-Thornton also noted that Coop Dreams could be performed at some point at the end of April so the community will have a chance to watch it.