It has been all Grease all the time for the last several weeks, at least for the cast and crew, but it will soon be coming to an RH Channing Auditorium near you!
The Flin Flon Community Choir and the Flin Flon Arts Council will present Grease: The Musical on May 5, 6 and 7 to sold-out houses each night.
The community response to this production has been overwhelming and that has made the Flin Flon-based cast work that much harder to bring a fantastic and professional production to the stage.
Even though the cast is all from the Flin Flon region (one young actor, Wadelius, is from The Pas and starred in Les Misérables as Gavroche, the child who was so heart-wrenching) a large part of the professional aspect of this production is due to the director, Jacquie Loewen, sound and light wizard Eric Labossier from Winnipeg and choreographer Janelle Hacualt now from Montreal.
Their names may be familiar to arts and culture audiences in Flin Flon as both Winnipeg-based talents lent their skill sets to Les Mis – Eric on lighting design and Jacquie as fight director. Janelle last choreographed the production of Chicago.
This time around, Jacquie has assumed the directorial reins and audiences will be wowed by what she has done, not only with the cast but with the auditorium staging itself. No more of that in this column, as there will be no spoilers here, but just wait until you experience it!
Jacquie brings lots of experience to the role of director in stage productions, film and television. She has worked all over Canada but mainly in Winnipeg, recently appearing in part of the Royal Manitoba Theatre Center’s Tom Hendry Warehouse season in Hand to God.
She has been director and assistant director for several Fringe shows and with the Winnipeg and Vancouver operas, so it’s safe to say she ‘gets’ singing as integral to storytelling on stage.
There are musicians in the pit band from out of town as well, though one of them, Brandon University professor Matt Duboff, has been lending his percussion talents to Flin Flon Community Choir productions for so long he really should be considered a hometown boy.
Most of the band is from Flin Flon, however, and music director Mark Kolt is fine-tuning (get it?) their contribution as we speak. In conversation with Mark at the beginning of April, he said the cast could perform the show at that time and no one would be disappointed. That is a good sign of the quality to come.
Grease is a musical about kids ready to graduate high school, so a whole new generation of performers is necessary to give it life. Luckily, we have just that available in Flin Flon.
We saw them emerge in Les Mis, but they are really coming into their own now. Joanna Doak, local pharmacist, and Craig Bancroft, teacher at Ruth Betts Community School, play the lead roles of Sandy and Danny.
Craig has some background in theatre as a university student; Joanna has only practiced her skills in Flin Flon productions. It is incredible to see these young folks blossom in their roles in the way that they do.
The rest of the cast includes Johnny Bettger, C.C. Trubiak, Lane Laderoute, Natalie Milligan, Katrina Windjack, Mari Pettersen, Claudia Mancini, Landice Yestrau, Logan Church, Anna Harrison, Janaeve Masson, Emily Sparling, Jacob Harvie, Tarun Balbani, Raphael Saray, Kevin Imrie and Constance McLeese.
Then there are the dancers. Choreographer Janelle Hacault, a Flin Flonner now based in Montreal, has been working really hard with the dance crew since January, so we can expect some spectacular moves on stage and some “Hand Jivin’” as well.
It’s gonna be great!
