Estevan's undoubtedly got talent, and Friday's Act III performance at the Souris Valley Theatre's Frehlick Hall once again proved it.
The oldest group of the theatre’s summer camp participants put on the Act III Divas and Dudes play. And according to the summer students and one of the camp directors, Abby Hanna, the performance was great.
“It went excellently! The kids definitely knocked it out of the park,” said Hanna.
The play, written by Lampman's Maureen Ulrich, told a story of a girl band travelling the country and running into adventures.
“There is a girl band Gloria and the Grifters, and they are just tired of their tour schedule and they decide to go on vacation, but their vacation ends up a little more stressful than their tour schedule even was,” explained Hanna.
The students only had eight full days to read the script, memorize their lines, transform into their characters and put an hour play together.
“Sometimes it was a little stressful, but it all came together very well,” said Levi Stepp, who is the other camp director.
There were 15 students participating in the camp, with two of them choosing to do lights and stage management, and others performing on stage.
“The way that the cast was made that Maureen made for us, it actually worked out really perfectly with the group of kids that we had,” said Stepp.
Hilarious and talented, young actors charmed the audience. They were excited about their parts and got to know their characters quite well.
Brianna Fleck described the heroine she chose to play as “sarcastic,” while Waneeke Baptiste’s character was “very over the top, very energetic, happy and very optimistic, a bit of a child” and Kiarra Biette’s Gloria was “very over-dramatic about every single thing.”
Both the play and camp were a lot of fun. Addison Shiels, who played Maren, talked about her long-term camp experience.
“I think it’s good. I’ve been here ever since 2012 actually, so I’ve been here for a long time and I really like it. It feels like home to me,” said Shiels.
For Fleck, it was just the second time at this camp, and she “really enjoyed it.”
A lot of spectators had to put quite a few kilometres to see the play. Thus, Biette’s family and friends were coming from Weyburn, Moose Jaw and even Alberta.
And the directors enjoyed their time at the camp no less than the students. As Hanna noted, their general experience with the camp was great, all thanks to the young actors.
“It’s a really good group of kids. There is a lot of energy. It wasn’t a struggle to get them to perform on stage. It’s been really good,” said Hanna. “If you tell them, ‘Hey, I think you guys could do better.’ They will do it.”
And Stepp added that participants “were all very eager to learn more about acting and singing for the play that they were putting on.”
Hanna compared this experience with her previous work in high school.
“I directed a play that was all high school kids. And it’s funny because these kids came and gave it their all from day one. And with the high school, it isn’t always the case. But they were giving it their all. They needed a little more guidance, but there is tonnes to work with. You didn’t have to get any of them out of their shell, they were just ready to go from day one,” shared Hanna.
“And also sometimes with high school kids, they won’t want to pick up on it right away. They are like, ‘Oh, we’ll leave that.’ But all these kids being younger, they are all ready to go, ready to learn new things. So it’s really good,” added Stepp.
It was the first time Hanna and Stepp worked at the camp. But prior to this experience, they spent a lot of time working together when Hanna was co-directing the 937 play at the ECS, which Stepp was a part of. So it was easy for them to guide the group together splitting the work and assisting each other.
“We may have something planned and then just being that day it ends up changing so we always are thinking on the fly and it works well because we know each other well,” said Stepp.
Hanna has two more camps ahead of her with Act II and Act I coming up this summer, which she will be co-directing with Kelsey Driedger.
