‘Borderline Crazies’ on stage
Mira Players preparing for annual theatre production
“The Mira Players have changed so much. We have become such a team and family,” Kelly Lynn Kirk says about her time as director of the community theatre group.
“I think every show we do is better than the last because we’re always learning and trying new things.”
This year, The Mira Players are offering as its spring production, “Borderline Crazies” by Leo W. Sears.
“It’s about two couples stranded in a double-booked cabin during a snowstorm with an axe murderer on the loose,” Kirk said about the plot. “Elle wants to put some romance back into her marriage with Stu, but he’s such a stick in the mud. Monica and Ira come to the cabin for a weekend of skiing and are surprised to see Elle and Stu there.”
From there the laughs and scares escalate.
The cast features Barbara Beaton, Harvey Pyke, Diana MacKinnon-Furlong, Bob Lewandowski, Amber Maroun and Allan Nicholson.
Dates for the show at the Marion Bridge Recreation Centre are Friday, May 4 (a general performance with a $10 admission), and Saturday, May 5, Friday, May 11 and Saturday, May 12 (dinner theatre performance with a $25 ticket). Tickets are available from Tracey Hilliard at 902-577-1828 and at Mullins Rite Stop.
“Because we are a community theatre and we’re so grateful for our audience, we give back to the community and the audience continues to support us,” Kirk notes. “After every show, the actors come out and greet and thank the audience for coming. I think the audience enjoys that because it lets them know we appreciate their continued support.”
The final Governor’s Book Pub for this season comes around, as usual, on the third Tuesday of the month — April 17, 7 p.m., at the Esplanade eatery in downtown Sydney.
This month features Sarah Faber and Oisin Curran, two of three nominees for this year’s Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction
Award. The third nominee is Carol Bruneau for her novel “A Bird on Every Tree” (Nimbus Publishing).
Faber’s debut novel, “All is Beauty Now” (McClelland and Stewart), is set in Brazil in the early 1960s and is about a family whose eldest daughter goes missing while her father struggles with bipolar disease.
Curran’s novel, “Blood Fable” (Book Thug), is about an 11-year-old boy living in a Buddhist community in Maine in the 1980s who turns to inventing stories when his mother is stricken with cancer.
Faber and Curran have attracted a lot of media interest not only for the high quality of their work, but also because they are a married couple raising their family in Southwest Margaree.
Both writers will have copies of their books for purchase and signing. And bring some extra cash for a freewill donation to the Jar of Consequence and the chance to win a fabulous door prize.
The evening concludes with The Open Stage when writers in the audience can read a short excerpt from an unpublished work in front of an appreciative, supportive, word-hungry audience.
Mavis Gallant was one of Canada’s most esteemed authors of short stories who, late in her writing life, made a lasting and deep connection to Cape Breton and her many readers, especially young readers, on our island. So much so, that she put a Cape Bretoner in charge of her literary estate.
In Gallant’s memory, with her estate’s co-operation, the School of Arts and Social Sciences at Cape Breton University is offering for the third year, the Mavis Gallant Writing Awards for the best essay by a CBU student
in any discipline.
The awards offer two $1,000 prizes — one to a student in their first or second year, and a second prize to a student in their third or fourth year. The submission deadline is Monday, April 30.
For more information contact Jan Curtis at jan_curtis@ cbu.ca or visit www.cbu.ca/ news-events/story/mavis-gallant-writing-awards-2/.