Ted Osborne, who has directed a number of plays with the SOAP community theatre group, was guest speaker at the Rotary Club of Osoyoos on Oct. 15. He spoke about SOAP and the role of community theatre. (Richard McGuire photo)
The local community theatre group called SOAP has an ambitious year ahead of it, staging a complex comedy and then hosting a major theatre festival.
SOAP was an acronym for South Okanagan Amateur Players, though lately the group has been trying to get rid of the word “amateur,” explained Ted Osborne, a regular director with the group.
Osborne was guest speaker last week at the Rotary Club of Osoyoos, where he talked about SOAP and the role of community theatre in general.
Next May, SOAP will be hosting the one-week Okanagan Theatre Festival at Frank Venables Theatre in Oliver that will include community theatre groups from throughout the Thompson-Okanagan region.
“They’re going to be presenting their best plays over a week,” said Osborne. “Each day a complete full-length play is being mounted there.”
Next year marks the first time since the local theatre group started in the early 1970s that it has hosted this festival, Osborne said.
The festival runs from May 22 to 29, 2016.
Meanwhile, SOAP is busy preparing for its upcoming production of Noises Off, a comedy by Michael Frayn, which runs from Jan. 21 to 23 at the Frank Venables Theatre.
Unlike previous SOAP productions, which have been staged in both Osoyoos and Oliver, Noises Off will only be staged in Oliver because the theatre in Osoyoos can’t handle the complex sets.
The comedy, claimed to be the funniest farce ever written, is a play within a play and much of the fun takes place backstage.
This requires a revolving set. Because the stage at Frank Venables is not equipped to revolve, SOAP will need to build revolving capability.
Osborne said he suggested this play because it is so funny and complicated.
“For the audience the fun is to see what’s happening behind the scenes and the actors trying to do the play,” he said. “They continue doing the play, but it doesn’t turn out that well.”
It’s especially challenging to stage because of the synchronization required between the action backstage, where actors are miming to each other, and the action on the stage within a stage.
Osborne told the Rotarians that SOAP tries to put on two plays a year, but it can usually only manage one when it does a musical, because these are more demanding. They’re also more popular, he said.
Over the past 40 years, SOAP has staged more than 50 shows including comedies, musicals and serious dramas.
For Osborne, theatre has been a big part of his life since he first got the bug while studying to be a teacher at University of Alberta.
There, he got involved in a musical theatre group called Jubilaires, which did a production of the musical Finian’s Rainbow. This was staged at Jubilee Auditoriums in Edmonton and Calgary.
“I had never done any theatre before,” said Osborne. “I got involved in the chorus.”
This led him to take courses to become a drama teacher, including two years of acting training.
When he graduated, he became a drama teacher in his hometown of Hinton, Alta., and also became active in a fledgling community theatre group where he directed plays.
The theatre group allowed him to participate in theatre in ways that he couldn’t with his Grade 7 class.
Fifteen years later, he took his drama teaching and involvement in community theatre to a new community, Westlock, Alta., north of Edmonton.
“I liked getting involved in community theatre in each town I went to,” said Osborne. “I usually got involved in community theatre because as a drama teacher you can’t act because you’re too busy teaching.”
Finally, he moved to the South Okanagan, where he did substitute teaching at high schools in Oliver and Osoyoos and became active in SOAP.
Osborne told the Rotarians that residents of larger cities such as Vancouver can attend high-quality playhouses and see professional actors and theatre companies.
In rural communities, however, community theatre groups fill that need.
“Community theatre is a great way of building community,” said Osborne. “There’s something really rewarding in going to a local theatre and seeing some of our local talent. We have our barber, our lawyer, our teacher, our reporter, our you-name-it, students, all up there on stage strutting their stuff. It builds pride in our community.”
RICHARD McGUIRE
Osoyoos Times
