Even the cancellation of its final event of the year couldn’t dampen the spirits of the Souris Valley Theatre for its 30th anniversary season.
The theatre was scheduled to host Kipling native Alex Runions for a concert on Saturday night. But the show was scrubbed due to a lack of ticket sales.
“We were really looking forward to having one last celebration of our year,” said theatre board president Robert Godfrey.
The theatre was able to have two concerts earlier in the season, with Codie Prevost in June and the Daae Family with the Bobby Bowen Family Band in July. But the big hit this season was the return of Ranchers and Rustlers as the main-stage show last month.
“It was just unbelievable to see how that went over,” said Godfrey. “The comments were great, but most importantly, it was just amazing to have three or four shows with more than 200 people in attendance.”
Three different theatre camps were offered for young people in the summer. Kelsey Driedger and Abby Hanna were the camp directors, and Maureen Ulrich was the writer-in-residence who worked with Driedger and Hanna to produce a production for the first camp.
“The girls started their season by visiting the schools in the area and doing presentations, and that worked great for us in not only reminding our returning campers why they love our camps so much, but also bringing in new campers this year,” Godfrey said.
Families who participated in the camps were happy with how they went, and Godfrey hopes they can be back next year.
The board has already started thinking of what they can do next year. They have been in contact with a few people, including Randy Apostle, who penned Ranchers and Rustlers in the 1990s.
“We’re looking at a couple of play titles right now,” Godfrey said.
The theatre had a late start for finalizing its schedule for this year, and he hopes that a head start will allow the theatre to have more shows in 2020, including a couple of short-term performances that would be here for a night or two.
Godfrey also noted that a lot of people did a lot of work with the theatre this year to make the season a success, and everyone on the board took on a job that they weren’t experienced with during the season.
