| It may be a mere speck on the Alberta road map, but this prairie hamlet northeast of Calgary sees more drama in a day than most communities do in a year.
The town of 93 (give or take a few) is set to hit the national stage this weekend when CBC radio storyteller Stuart McLean airs his Vinyl Café program from the Rosebud Opera House. McLean performed in the town’s historic theatre before an audience of 220 fans late last month.
Residents of this artisan community – home to the Rosebud School of the Arts – say it was only a matter of time before the town’s thriving theatre programs, plays, galleries and restaurants were discovered by the rest of Canada.
"Rosebud is Alberta’s best-kept little secret," says veteran musician Tom Wilson, who moved to the town an hour’s drive northeast of Calgary more than two years ago with wife Kathy to open and run the eclectic Rosebud Café, a renovated heritage house with a stage tucked in the corner for live music.
"It’s now just in the process of exploding. We’re doing great things out here and now Rosebud is going to become known to the rest of Canada as a nationally recognized arts centre."
A big factor in the town’s success has been the Rosebud School of the Arts, which opened in 1983 and operates a post-secondary program offering conservatory training in theatre and music. Students, usually numbering 25 to 30 at any one time, perform in many Rosebud Theatre productions alongside professional actors and musicians. They also do double-duty in the school’s other operations, including serving patrons or providing roving entertainment in the Mercantile dining room.
Rosebud Theatre executive director Bob Davis notes that about 40 per cent of town visitors are from Calgary, another nine from Edmonton, and the rest primarily from across Western Canada. With five to seven shows a week, including matinees, the theatre – housed in an old granary building – lures about 35,000 visitors a year and recently honoured its 500,000th guest.
"We have a loyal and dedicated group of visitors, but we’re always seeking to expand that. There’s still a whole lot of people out there who haven’t seen us yet," says Davis.
During one recent Thursday matinee performance of The Drawer Boy, Davis introduced the show to a near-capacity crowd. Asked how many patrons had been to Rosebud before, more than two-thirds raised their hands. Guests ran the gamut from day-tripping seniors to local teens to farmers and oilpatch workers.
And just a few weeks earlier, when storyteller McLean took the Opera House stage, he entertained a full house with tales of Rosebud and its history, and then invited some of the local talent to take part. Musicians included Wilson, known for his work with Longview singer-songwriter Ian Tyson, Grammy award-winning country crooner Corb Lund and the upbeat folksy strains of the four-man Rosebud River Valley Boys.
With so many arts-loving citizens living among the coulees of the Rosebud River Valley, it’s no surprise McLean didn’t have to go far to find musicians for his show, say arts school education co-directors Maki van Dyke and Paul Muir.
"What’s cool about it is that you plunk a theatre down in the prairies, and then you get some B&B, a café and a gallery," says van Dyke.
"It’s funny – when we have two full shows running, we triple our town’s population twice a day," adds Muir. "We are very fortunate with what we have here."
The live Vinyl Café show from Rosebud airs on CBC FM radio Saturday, May 6 at 10 a.m. and on CBC 1010 AM radio Sunday, May 7 at noon.
For more information on Rosebud, check out www.rosebud.ca or www.rosebudschoolofthearts.com |
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