REGINA — It’s been a century of arts performances for Regina’s Little Theatre (RLT).
Famous actors, including Tatiana Maslany, Shirley Douglas and John Vernon, have taken to the stage for the group.
Founded in 1926, the little theatre movement spread across North America and Europe for decades.
“British expats who decided that Regina was large enough and they wanted to bring some of their culture over to Saskatchewan, … they started the Regina Little Theatre,” said member at large Nora Berg.
The RLT was led by George Chetwynd and its first president, Francis B. Ware.
These founders helped create the theatre’s first show, Officer 666, which is one of 865 productions done by RLT over 100 years.
Behind the scenes
The theatre presents five productions each year, selected a year in advance by its committee.
Productions are handled by a large number of volunteers.
“We're talking about 150 to 200 volunteers a year, whether they are acting, directing, working backstage, building sets, taking tickets, all are absolutely essential to the group effort,” said RLT president John Chaput.
Hundreds of people who help with the show each year have shown Chaput the theatre provides a real purpose for the city.
“People come in as an audience and want to be entertained, but we’ve always provided an internal community.”
Preparations for each show begin weeks in advance with auditions.
“Once the cast is rehearsing, our gentlemen of the shop are building set pieces according to what the set designer has done. Technicians and backstage people are recruited by the director either beforehand or during the auditions because you gotta have someone doing sound and lights and costume changes,” said Chaput.
After finishing preparation, the theatre will host five straight shows over four days.
“We had begun this schedule years ago, and it’s grown in popularity,” said Chaput.
Challenging times
Like many organizations, the RLT faced its fair share of challenges, including the Great Depression and Second World War.
While the theatre had a stable home at Darke Hall, this changed in the 1960s after the venue fell into disrepair.
“In the 60s, and even extending somewhat into the 70s, RLT had to bounce around to a whole bunch of different places, mostly high school gyms, which were not really well suited to the purpose, and attendance suffered really badly,” said Chaput.
Chaput said the theatre group likely wouldn’t have stayed afloat if it hadn’t been for Sampson J. Goodfellow, Jean Freeman, and others.
Luckily for RLT, the organization found it’s permanent home at the Regina Performing Arts Centre in 1989.
However, new worries arose once COVID-19 shut everything down in 2020.
“We had to shut down for almost a season and a half and only do performances on the internet. And we were actually quite afraid for a while, not necessarily for our survival, but shall we say for our health,” said Chaput.
Once RLT returned to in-person shows, turnout had declined from years past.
“We thought, oh my goodness, we are gonna go into a serious deficit situation,” said Chaput.
The RLT decided to shift to comedy-focused productions to ensure audience entertainment.
“They're meant to be thought-provoking and engaging. We don't wanna send people home feeling sad or bad or guilty, we want them to feel touched if necessary, but most of all, we want them to be entertained,” said Chaput.
This shift in mindset led to strong attendance, drawing a combined 1,200 people to its last three shows.
Shift-in-theatre
Both Chaput and Berg joined RLT in the 1980s.
In their mind, theatre performances haven’t changed, but the style has.
“There's all sorts of different ways of directing that have been brought to the fore, and every director works differently,” said Berg.
Berg also said the direction of intense scenes has changed
“Even scenes where you have to be fiercely angry at somebody, lthere's much more care taken. Before it was just, well, stack it up, this is part of the play.”
Looking ahead in the future, Berg said what entertains people now will entertain others for decades.
“People will always come to the theatre to be engaged on a comic level and touched. Because there's many plays we've done that they're not necessarily rip snort comedies, but there's something that really touches their soul.”
