When the theatre comes to town
From kids to a retired police officer, these locals shine in Westben’s Fiddler on the Roof
The theatre is a barn; the actors and singers are professionals and amateurs who hail from Toronto to Kingston and plenty of smaller places in between. And when the Westben Arts Festival Theatre puts on a show, the locals turn out in droves.
Here’s a look at what makes this biennial endeavour a success.
The backstory
Westben Arts Festival Theatre stages a musical every other year drawing on the talents of the people living in the rural communities scattered around Campbellford, Ont. The company does everything from sewing costumes, finding props, helping with parking and refreshments to performing.
Westben’s first musical production, in 1997, was Jesus Christ Superstar, held in a Campbellford church. It sold 2,000 tickets in a town of just 3,400 people, exposing an unmet thirst for arts in the area east of Peterborough.
The Sound of Music, in 2000, had the same success, so the musical became a biennial staple of the nonprofit theatre, now located in a newly constructed barn.
This year’s Fiddler on the Roof requires 80 performers to play the early-20th-century residents of the fictional Russian shtetl of Anatevka. Dozens more help behind the scenes. The theatre The theatre is a barn on a sprawling farm property, but it houses artistic ambitions, not animals. It was built for $250,000 in 2000 as a performance venue. The peaked ceiling of the 400-seat timber structure soars above the stage and wings. When the weather is lovely, the walls are removed to expose the action to crowds gathered on the lawns. The reach Cast members come from Toronto, Peterborough, Norwood, Tweed, Havelock, Hastings, Campbellford, Warkworth, Trent River, Marmora, Springbrook, Meyersburg, Stirling, Brighton and Kingston. The professional performers This is a professional theatre company, so the leads in Fiddler are paid members of ACTRA.
Toronto baritone Andrew Tees stars as milkman Tevye, the Jewish father trying to keep his family of girls observing religious and cultural traditions in a world of change. Tees, who has sung with the Canadian Opera Company, enjoys working with the amateurs. “Community theatre is how I got my start,” he says.
Kim Dafoe is a mezzo-soprano and conductor from the area who plays Tevye’s wife, Golde. She is head of the arts department at Centre Hastings Secondary School and has found her teaching skills helpful with the young cast. “An integral part of the teaching profession is to find a way to bring the very best out of our students and I have witnessed this during our rehearsals at Westben,” she says. Soprano Donna Bennett, who founded the theatre with her husband, musician Brian Finley, has the role of Fruma-Sarah. Community involvement doesn’t mean watereddown content, she says. “People are paying to come. We are aiming for best in class, best in community theatre.” Orchestra There’s got to be a fiddler in Fiddler on the Roof and the role is filled by Luke Mercier, the local luthier, or string-instrument maker. After opening the show atop the roofs onstage, he reappears in the pit playing violin and mandolin in the orchestra led by Finley, theatre co-founder, on keyboard. The quartet is completed by Nancy Elmhirst, a local retired music teacher, on keyboard and Ken Tizzard, member of rock bands Thornley and the Watchmen, on bass. Behind the scenes Retired high-school teacher Joan Filip had a $500 costume budget and 150 costumes to assemble, assisted by a sewing squad from the chorus and community volunteers.
Liz Hathway turned blue, flowered material and lace edging into a dress for the youngest of Tevye’s five daughters. Filip “just tells me what to do and I put it together,” she laughs.
The Hastings Historical Society and East Northumberland Secondary School (which had performed Fiddler) were also tapped for contributions.
The set designed by Brad Francis, a TV and movie set designer and organic farmer, is a recreation of a poor village in Imperial Russia. If there are overtones of Ontario Mennonite farm life in the wagons, benches and tools, it’s because Mennonite farmer Jonathan Bylor contributed some of the props.
Stage manager Trish York, a film and media artist and school bus driver, also sourced props for the village and is a member of the chorus. New kids and old pros Almost 70 years separate the youngest and oldest members of the cast. Eight-year-old Nicole de Jong is the youngest of eight home-schooled daughters. She is a “townsperson,” sings in the chorus and is a member of one of the three choirs led by Bennett. John Scott, 77, is a retired police officer who sings in the Festival Chorus. He is the hat maker in the play.
The four choirs affiliated with the festival provide the vocal power for musicals and participate in many of the operas and concerts throughout the Westben season.
Tickets are $15 to $39, youth $5. Info at westben.ca.