About Me

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Hi, welcome to my blog. I'm a writer of poetry, prose and plays but my best known work is children's fiction. My most popular books are the Selby series and the Emily Eyefinger series. This blog is intended as an entertaining collection of thoughts and pictures from here in Australia and from my travels in other parts of the world. I hope you enjoy it. (For more information have a look at my website.)

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Northern Drama Festival 2012

My good friends and colleagues Richard Tulloch and Ursula Dubosarsky have recently been to New York to see works of theirs performed in theatres on Broadway. In the case of Richard it was his play adaptation of the Dutch children's book, The Book of Everything by Guus Kuijer. (Note: this was Richard's second Broadway production, the first being an adaptation of Eric Carle's works a couple of years ago.) Richard Tulloch is an actor, children's book writer, scriptwriter, travel writer, cyclist and the author of the hugely entertaining Life on the Road blog.

Ursula's New York triumph was the adaptation of her children's picture book, The Terrible Plop (No, it's not about what you're thinking.). The play, re-titled simply "Plop!" was adapted and presented by the Windmill Theater of Adelaide, South Australia.

But enough of my friends' accomplishments. If there was one place I would have loved to have been this year it wouldn't have been New York City and the Great White Way but Ile-a-la-Crosse, Saskatchewan, Canada. And I'd have been there to see the multi-award-winning, talented kids from the Charlebois Community School of Cumberland House (that's a town) in Northern Saskatchewan in their production of a play of mine called, "Waiting for Joe Doe". How these kids ended up putting on one of my plays is a story in itself.

It all started when Lana Patterson, the dedicated Drama Teacher at Charlebois Community School found a copy of the now-long-gone book of my funny plays, Comedies for Kids, and produced one of the plays ("Muck-up at Murder Mansion"---re-naming it "Mystery at Murder Mansion"). She and the cast and crew of Charlebois took it to Northern Drama Festival and won a stack of awards. Later, they did the same with another production of a play also from the same book, "The Perils of Prince Percy of Pomegranate", and again they won lots of plaudits. Cumberland House is a First Nations community and they retitled this play  "The Perils of Chief Cimagasiw of Ciciganihk" putting some of it in their first language, Cree.

The recent production, "Waiting for Joe Doe", was another comedy play from the same book and, once again, the kids did themselves and their school proud. I'm only sorry that I couldn't have been there to bask in their limelight.







The cast and crew showing signs of stress after too many rehearsals

And, finally, basking in  well-deserved glory
photos by Ken Reimer 2012
Kato Carriere played Bugsy
Leah Sewap played Mugs
Drew Thommes played Mona and Happy Harry 
Asagewin Carriere played Bombshell Betty and Blind Billy 
Devri Settee played Joe Doe and Weasel Willy 
Steven Crate played Jumpy Jack 
Brandon Carriere played the bodyguard
Ericka Chaboyer played Baby Calhoun 
Demi Carriere played the Nanny 
Kaelee Chaboyer was our Stage Manager 
Jordan Shaw and Jonah Nabess were Light and Sound

The envelope please---and the awards went to:

Certificate of Merit for Technical- Drew Thommes - (props¬ Machine Guns) 
Certificate of Merit for Technical - Jordan Shaw - (Lighting & Sound) 
Certificate of Merit for Acting - Drew Thommes - (Mona) 
Bob Hinitt Technical Award - Kaelee Chaboyer
Mary Ellen Burgess Acting Award - Kato Carriere
An Acting Award - Asagewin Carrier - Bombshell Betty 
Best Technical Crew Award - Charlebois Community School
Runner-Up to Best Technical Production - Charlebois Community School


And a special oscar to Lana Patterson, drama teacher and dramaturg extrordinaire and to her fellow director Ken Reimer! I only wish I had more plays for guys.


1 comment:

Lana Patterson said...

Hi Duncan ... Thank you so much for your very well written and accurate blog in praise of our Charlebois Community School drama group. Your plays are extremely witty and are always crowd pleasers. Our performances inevitably get the audience laughing and groaning at your silly puns and lame jokes. =)Our drama group always loves performing your plays. In fact there are three of our students that have been actors in all three of the plays we have done from your book, Comedies for Kids. Each year they have improved their acting skills and have won numerous awards. I am so delighted to have found your book! I wish you had even more play books! And thank you, too, for your gracious praise of my abilities as a drama teacher. I am strictly an amateur but love what I do and love the students I work with. Your plays have made it an extremely fun adventure. Thank you so much! All the very best to you, Duncan!