All the World's a Stage Take a cross-section of your local community, offer the people a chance to dress up, wear makeup (especially the guys) and become someone else for a short time, and you have a Drama Group. The Pender Islands’ Solstice Theatre Society is one of a number of thriving acting groups in this area, and continues to attract people of all ages and experience. It was first formed in 1991, and while many actors have retired or left the Islands, some of the early "thespians" are still involved. Over the years we have acquired a huge collection of costume and hand props, some of which are genuine period pieces, reflecting the variety of our productions. These range from an outdoor production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night to the much loved The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. Our largest
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casts were for Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood and Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. Unlike many amateur dramatic societies, we do not have a theatre of our own, and the storage of our wardrobe and props has been an ongoing and increasing problem until recently. For some time, we were able to store our collection in the lower part of a house, but when the property was put up for sale, we were forced to move. It seemed an impossible task to find a suitable space large enough to accommodate, and safely store, our valuable possessions, but then two amazing things happened: we were able to buy a 42-foot storage container, already on the Island, and the Pender Island Legion agreed to have us park this enormous "beast"
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by Barry Mathias
SEASIDE TIMES | september 2012 | www.seasidetimes.ca
at the back of their property. This has become a helpful screen for anxious patrons when the toilets back up, as happened recently: the loos flooded while Solstice was presenting a collection of humorous sketches; our actors continued as men with buckets and mops worked around them! When the storage container was delivered, it exhibited the residue of many years of storage abuse, and a host of members spent many "happy" hours cleaning and painting the interior. Our president, Gordon Resvick, who found it and negotiated the deal, led the construction of railings and shelves that enable us to store everything. So, eventually, we have created the most unusual and yet usable "wardrobe" that enables us to costume most plays, with minimum effort. Our next play, in November, will be The Foreigner by Larry Thue. Pictured are the directors, Julia and Greg Nicholls, trying out some of our immense costume collection. The lady in the firs is Helen Lemon-Moore, who has acted in many of our plays, and is the longest serving member on our Committee. I remember acting with her in The Passion of Dracula, where I played an alcoholic English lord, and Helen played my lover who turned into a vampire. Not an everyday occurrence, but as they say in the theatre world: “The show must go on!”