By Kathy Gallant

Carpenter High drama team garners awards at drama provincials

May 10, 2017 | 10:00 AM

For the first time since 2005, Meadow Lake’s Carpenter High School drama team headed to the Saskatchewan Drama Association provincials, garnering several awards in the province-wide competition.

The event was held at the University of Regina this year at the William Ridell Centre and Carpenter’s original production, To Be Continued… was one of 12 plays that was presented.

Ellie Ellis took home a technical award for lightning, while Alexa Hunter won a stage manager merit award. Josh Beaubier and James Merasty each took home a merit award for acting. Alexa McKee, one of the leads in the play, was awarded with the University of Regina Acting Award. She was one of only four who won that honour, out of a pool of 132 eligible students. Brittaney Greedus also won a Debbie Baker cheer award for showing enthusiasm, cooperation and respect.

Co-director and teacher Dawn Benoit said that it was a great experience for the Carpenter High drama team, and everyone involved put a great deal of time and effort into the success.

“We started practicing this play in early January,” she said. “We qualified at regionals in Turtleford April 8-10, and took 19 students down to Regina and performed on the last day. That gave us time to see what other groups were doing. We also learned areas that we’d like to expand upon – we haven’t at won regionals since 2005.”

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Benoit’s daughter, Toronto-based playwright Vicktoria Adam wrote the play.  

“That came from us wanting to do something that would not have been done before,” said Benoit. “What I’ve done is given her a theme, and this year’s was doubt and hope. It is about the importance of keeping in mind that hope is what gets you through the rough times, as well as strong friendship and families.”

Benoit said that the success this year come from a labour of love by all involved.

“When I came into Carpenter five years ago, it was a bit like starting over again, so we’ve also built back up the family of actors and supporting crew,” she said. “They’ve done so much work throughout the year – princess tea parties and dessert theatre fundraisers – and that has really built up the camaraderie.”

The troupe that headed to provincials included a mix of long time participants and a few new faces.

Lara Van de Venter said that it was a childhood dream to be able to bring a provincial banner home. “We were literally so excited,” she said. “Now we’re going to have our name on a banner on the wall there forever.”

Co-star Layla Mitchell added that being able to head to provincials really brought the process together.

“We did 23 hours of dress rehearsal all together and just came together as a team,” she noted. “It was pretty cool to be able to perform on such big stage too.”

Zane Klics said that the drama team has taken home a great deal of knowledge on how to keep improving Carpenter’s program for the future. “The experience we got from it is also a really big part of going to provincials,” he said. “We now know how much effort it takes to make sure we put on a great show and what we have to do to next year to achieve that same level – we learned how high the bar is.”

Grade 11 student James Merasty said he wasn’t sure what to expect in the process, but was happy to be a part of the magic of it all. “For someone like me, it didn’t feel too different than going to regionals so I just kept going,” he said. “I even got an award, so that’s cool!”

For his graduating counterparts, like Alexa McKee, it’s been years of perseverance that brought them to the provincial finals.

“For some of us, we’ve gotten so close before and didn’t make it past regionals,” she said. “So this year when we made it to provincials there were a lot of tears – I’m pretty sure we had to paddle our way out of the hall where the awards were. It felt great to have the hard work pay off. Regionals better watch out next year – Carpenter’s aiming for the win again!”

kathy.gallant@jpbg.ca  

On Twitter @ReporterKath