It’s an all-star show with an unmatched cast, singing – and acting – some of the best numbers from Broadway musicals and the operettas of Gilbert & Sullivan.
This weekend’s Reminiscing – a fundraising trip down memory lane by performers and members of the Fraser Valley Gilbert & Sullivan Society – comes to the stage of White Rock’s Coast Capital Playhouse tonight (May 20) and Saturday (May 21) at 7:30 p.m.
For fans of musical theatre, it promises a rich feast of musical entertainment including audience favourites – and, wherever possible, the original performers – from more than 30 years of outstanding productions by the community group.
One can expect G&S classics from such shows as HMS Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, The Gondoliers, Ruddigore and The Mikado, but the extravaganza will also include much of the Broadway music appropriated each year for the group’s Christmas pantomime.
There’s a serious purpose to the show, musical director and producer Tim Tucker notes.
Declining audience numbers and escalating performing rights fees in recent years have made it increasingly hard for the volunteer society to mount the kind of large-scale, cost-intensive productions it has is known for since 1982.
“As this spring’s main production we were going to be doing Anne of Green Gables, but when we looked at the cost for the rights, we realized it was just not do-able,” he said.
“If we get a good audience for both nights, we’ll have gone a long way towards raising the budget for a pantomime this year,” he added.
In substituting Reminiscing’s best-of-FVGSS format for the spring show, Tucker says he has been able to keep the costs down to a bare minimum, helped immensely by the White Rock Players Club’s donation of the theatre rental for both nights.
“We’re also offering a 50/50 draw and a silent auction,” he said.
But even with a cast of some 25, Tucker acknowledges represents only a fraction of the impressive talents who’ve been showcased in FVGSS shows over the years.
“There were some people who really wanted to do it, but were just unavailable or out of town that weekend,” Tucker said.
Those who will be there are choice, nonetheless.
They include such popular performers as Mark (Mr. O Canada) Donnelly, Christopher Simmons and Debra Da Vaughn and Tucker’s own daughter, Chelsea, back from a stint in Toronto, whose powerful rendition of Defying Gravity – featured in the society’s Phantom of the Panto – has become something of a personal trademark.
Other favourites include James Walker, newly returned from studies in New York; longtime FVGSS stalwart Roger Hussen; frequent panto dame Peter Roberts, Dann Wilhelm (who appears as both performer and M.C.), Kerry O’Donovan, Samantha Andrews, Christina Campbell, Michelle Collier, Clive Ramroop and Jennifer Tiles (Saturday’s performance only).
It’s not just recent performances that will be remembered, he noted.
“Chad Matchette is going to be reviving one of his dames from the ’90s and Mike Balser is going to be doing the song Catch A Falling Star which he performed as Geppetto in Pinocchio in 1994.”
Providing live orchestral accompaniment for the show will be Tucker and fellow FVGSS veteran Vashti Fairbairn on keyboards, plus Steve Lay on bass and Blair Fuergutz on drums.
Tucker said that while he put together the show’s running order, the selection of numbers was really a ‘people’s choice’.
“We sent out about a million pieces of email to members and former members and subscribers, asking them to participate in a survey in which they’d choose a favourite number and performer from a society show of the last 30 years,” Tucker said.
“These were the ones that we were able to get together.”
He said he wanted the performers to not only revisit the songs, but also hop back into the characters who delivered them.
Even though the show has necessarily been rehearsed piecemeal, the performers quickly got back into the spirit of the original shows.
“It’s actually been quite frightening, how well that has worked,” Tucker said.
“But then, you have to remember that in a lot of these cases they were the performers’ own favourites too.”
The Coast Capital Playhouse is located at 1532 Johnston Rd.
For tickets ($25 including service fees), call 604-536-7535 or book online at www.whiterockplayers.ca/tickets
