Wednesday, June 28, 2017
Serving the Hub of the North since 1960
Volume 57 • Issue 25
Drama students put acting skills on display for final exams BY KYLE DARBYSON KYLE@THOMPSONCITIZEN.NET
LOTSA LIVE MUSIC ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT PAGE 2
A NEW KING MINER EMERGES SPORTS - PAGE 6
TROJAN ATHLETIC AWARDS SPORTS - PAGE 7
While most R.D. Parker Collegiate students were confined to the classroom for their exams, pupils of the drama program were able to finalize their marks in front of a live audience. This special examination took the form of a theatrical double-bill at the Letkemann Theatre June 22, where members of the Grade 10 and Grade 11 drama programs put on two shows back-to-back. These productions didn’t pull material from the works of William Shakespeare or classic Broadway theatre. Instead, the students came up with their own original stories that borrowed heavily from modern popular culture. First up was the Grade 10 production titled The Emerald Games, which tells the story of a distant future where characters from different film and television franchises, including Harry Potter, The Office and Scott Pilgrim, fight to the death in a Hunger Games-style tournament. The second play, Super Retired, featured a similarly
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pop culture-inspired narrative. It follows a group of elderly super heroes and villains tasked with solving a murder mystery inside of their retirement home. When it came to writing these two plays, RDPC drama teacher Demaris Wilson said she only provided her students with a loose premise. The rest of the narrative gaps were filled in by the students themselves, who collectively
wrote the scripts through methods such as group chat and Google Docs. “By writing their own script it allows us to customize a role for each individual and it also allows us to have the kids invested more,” said Wilson. “Because as soon as they’re the ones who are creating the ideas, there’s a whole new level of commitment that comes to it.” Some of the students even
pulled from their own experiences in writing the script, as is the case with the Grade 11 students who performed in Super Retired. “They knew right away that they wanted to do something with old people,” said Wilson. “We also have an improv club at the school and we recently went down to Winnipeg in March and competed, for our first time, in the Canadian Improv Games,
Council awards A&B Builders contract for MacLean Park stage canopy BY IAN GRAHAM
NORTHERN TALENT REWARDED ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT PAGES 5 & 9
Thompson Citizen photo by Kyle Darbyson Members of the RDPC Grade 11 drama class perform their original play titled Super Retired at the Letkemann Theatre June 22.
so a few of them have personas that they go back to.” The students’ commitment was really put to the test during the production of these two plays, since Wilson said they were only given three weeks to put everything together. “To write two original scripts with two different casts and everything was quite an undertaking,” she said. “Both classes, on top of their regular course work, had six other school rehearsals that they came to. The commitment level was awesome and the kids really put their heart and souls into both of these shows.” Even though this isn’t the first time RDPC drama students have produced and performed in a play as part of their final exams, Wilson hopes that their unique approach to production will carry over into the next school year. “There’s been talks with my Grade 11s, who will be in Grade 12 next year, of starting sooner in the year (with their) writing, so that we can produce a full production that would be a 40-minute to an hour-long show. So that’s exciting.”
The heretofore neverending saga that is the quest to refurbish MacLean Park could finally reach its climax this year after council voted 7-2 June 19 in favour of reallocating $32,600 left over from air conditioning upgrades at City Hall and the library to the already-budgeted $50,400 to contract the service of A&B Builders to construct and install a canopy for the stage. The plan to redevelop MacLean Park began back in November 2009 when the federal government announced it would provide $230,000 towards the project, which had, at that time, a budget of about $690,000. Two years later, in September 2011, then-mayor Tim Johnston was the only one to vote
in favour of a resolution to award the first tender while six councillors were opposed due to concerns about a tight timeline. A year later, council voted to add $48,500 to the $93,500 budget for work including construction of the stage and canopy and of a water fountain. An awning for the stage was ordered in the spring of 2013 but the company supplying it went out of business before it was delivered. In 2015, the plans for the fountain were abandoned. The rationale behind the decision was that the other alternatives would have been to install an expensive filtration system to screen out debris from the water or to hook a fountain up to the municipal water supply, which is less environmentally friendly. A tender seek-
ing a company to provide a canopy was issued in 2016 but the city did not receive any offers from suppliers. Councillors Ron Matechuk and Duncan Wong cast the two votes opposed to providing A&B Builders the $83,000 for the design and construction of the canopy. "Quite simply I think that all the money for this canopy can be better spent on streets in Thompson," said Matechuk. "I think this is a white elephant project and also it's a money pit," said Wong, requesting a recorded vote. "We already spent over $700,000 on this particular space and we want to spend another 80-some thousand dollars? I don't think so, especially we have all these challenges ahead of us. If we do have the $80,000, I'd rather
put it aside to reduce tax or put into the infrastructure, repair the potholes." City manager Gary Ceppetelli clarified that about $450,000 had been spent to date on the redevelopment of the park since 2010. "This canopy has been a thorn in our side for so long," said Coun. Penny Byer. "I understand and I appreciate Coun. Wong's suggestions of the money but it is a separate pot of money. That capital didn't come from us raising taxes, that came from other reserves and I'm just glad to see that this is finished and I'm glad to see that there was extra money left over from another project." Wong replied that the money still comes from taxpayers, which promoted a subsequent response from Mayor Dennis Fenske.
"For the last five years there have been no property taxes used for capital projects," said Fenske. "They have been funded 100 per cent by either grants from the gas tax at the federal government level. The statement that he made is absolutely false. Capital dollars are raised and expended through reserves, through grants from the provincial government, from the federal government and other granting sources. This council and the previous council has been very adamant about not going to the property taxpayer for capital projects and we've been able to do that for the last five years so this expenditure of funds is from capital reserves or projects that have been underspent, not the property tax bill that you receive in September."