| One of Calgary’s oldest community theatre groups wants people to know it’s much more than a producer of farces and whodunits.
Leading the group’s charge into a brave new world of theatre is Alan Leboeuf, president of Workshop Theatre.
"Workshop Theatre had a lot of original members that were British," he says. "It was an aging group and they were dying off, literally and figuratively."
In fact, Workshop’s roots date back to 1944, when teacher and local theatre pioneer Dr. Betty Mitchell founded Workshop 14 (her room number at Western Canada High School). That group later amalgamated with the Musicians’ and Actors’ Club in 1965 to form the MAC-14 Society. When MAC-14 turned professional in 1968 and became Theatre Calgary, a splinter group kept the amateur side alive by starting Workshop Theatre.
For three decades, Workshop was content to mount standard bedroom farces and Agatha Christie mysteries, until Leboeuf took over as president three years ago.
At that time, not only was there concern about an aging membership, but also about the quality of actors and directors that would be attracted to the company if it was not reinvigorated.
"If you don’t replenish the talent pool it gets old and dies," says Leboeuf. "We want younger people to be involved, people in their 20s, 30s and 40s."
Since then, the company has begun to get an injection of new blood and seen it pay off at the box office. Leboeuf says Workshop had its most successful year ever last season, with ticket sales up 35 per cent. The group wants to continue that trend this year by announcing to Calgarians that it is a renewed theatre company.
"We want to stage plays that challenge and are interesting," says Leboeuf. "We think we can retain our traditional audience and expand at the same time."
This month, the group, which is based in the Pumphouse Theatres, makes good on that claim by kicking off a new season with Incorruptible, a dark comedy by American playwright Michael Hollinger that’s a world away from Workshop’s traditional fare. Set in Priseaux, France in 1250, it’s the story of a group of monks that digs up the monastery graveyard to sell the bones off as relics.
"It may upset some people’s religious sensibilities," says Leboeuf, adding that the company has sent a copy of the script to Roman Catholic Bishop Fred Henry in hopes of a response.
In November, Workshop will continue on with that irreverent attitude by mounting Proscenophobia by Bettine Manktelow. This play (a Canadian première) is set in the dressing room of a theatre during the performance of a thriller.
In February, Workshop returns to more familiar territory for its older audience members with 84 Charing Cross Road, the popular literary romance that was filmed in 1986 with Anthony Hopkins and Anne Bancroft.
The company’s 2003-04 season continues with a similar mix of the light and the dark. Touch and Go, a farce by Derek Benfield, will be staged in May and Frank McGuinness’s Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me, an intense drama about three western hostages in Beirut, runs in June. |
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