by Sam McBride
About a month after the “Love in the Lodge” mellerdramer show closed I saw a story in the Whitehorse Star newspaper in which the Whitehorse Drama Club (WDC) invited individuals interested in community theatre to attend an organizing meeting about the club’s participation in the upcoming 3rd Annual Break-Up Drama Festival in Dawson City, the former capital of the Yukon Territory which was at the centre of the famous Klondike Gold Rush of 1898.
I phoned the contact person and said I would attend the meeting, and be happy to help with publicity, in line with my background as a newspaper reporter. She thanked me for the offer, and encouraged me to try out for a part in the auditions. The meeting was held in the WDC’s longstanding clubhouse, which was a remarkable log cabin-like structure not far from downtown Whitehorse which was large enough for meetings and rehearsals but not for performances, which would often be held on school stages.
A great aspect of the Break-up Festival (so named because it coincided with the time in late May each spring when the ice on the Yukon River melts enough for boat travel on the river) was its venue: the wonderful Palace Grand Theatre in Dawson City – a replica of the type of the stage and performance hall in the exciting gold rush era. The theatre project was funded by the Diefenbaker government in the early 1960s as part of its commitment to preserving the heritage of Northern Canada.
As I had just recently played the role of villain in the Sourdough Rendezvous Mellerdramer, I was asked to play a very similar role in WDC’s entry in the festival, called “The Valiant Villain”, written by John Murray. I was very happy to play the character named Seymour S. Schnitzel because I knew it would be a lot of fun.
I had been to Dawson once earlier in the year for a short visit as part of an orientation tour, and looked forward to spending more time there. One of the special things about Dawson City at the time was that it was the only place in Canada where gambling was legal. I remember several visits to Diamond Tooth Gerties Gambling Hall, both during that trip and again when I returned with friends to Dawson City for a summer visit in August 1976. I was very impressed by the shows at Gerties, particularly skits by the Frantic Follies group, including a hilarious acting-out of Robert Service’s classic poem “The Cremation of Sam Magee”.
We drove up to Dawson City on Friday May 21st. It was a gravel road at that time because of problems paved roads had in winter due to periods of extreme cold and permafrost. Even so, with good van on a well-maintained gravel road we were able to average about 60 miles per hour and get to our motel in Dawson in six hours.
We were one of six theatre groups participating in the festival – an even measure of three Canadian and three American clubs. Our competition included the local Klondike Theatre Guild of Dawson City; the Pelly Players of Faro, Yukon; the Canal Community Players of Haines, Alaska; the Poverty Players of Skagway, Alaska; and the Baronof Little Theatre of Sitka, Alaska. I was amazed that folks from Sitka, which is well south of Juneau on the Alaska Panhandle, were able to get to the festival. Today it is a 20-hour Alaska Ferry trip from Sitka to Haines. Then you have a six-hour drive to Whitehorse, and another six hours to Dawson City from there. I felt tired after our drive from Whitehorse, so I could only imagine how exhausted the Sitka troupe were.
The festival was sponsored by the Klondike Visitors Association (an alliance of businesses supporting tourism) and the city, which at that time had a population of 700.
The festival went through the weekend. Our “Valiant Villain” show was either the second or third performance on the Saturday, and the other three groups performed on Sunday. For our cast and crew, it was nice to get our show done so we could relax and enjoy the rest of the festival. The audience participation in our show was terrific – much louder and enthusiastic than the “Love in the Lodge” crowd had been. In response to the action in the play, the audience cheered, booed and hissed vigorously. The festival adjudicator, Kathleen Nouch from Saskatchewan, later mentioned the enthusiasm and energy of the audience in her comments on our play. As an actor, it was a thrill to have the audience respond “on cue” as the show proceeded. It was an exhilarating experience, in a perfect setting in an 1890s-style hall with boisterous spectators.
A fun party and dance on Saturday night was an opportunity to get to know people from the other plays, as well as the technical staff and adjudicator. I remember some of us joking about “lobbying” the adjudicator so she would give our play better marks in her adjudication. The six plays in the festival were in a range of styles and all enjoyable to watch. with ours being the only melodrama. After the conclusion of the performances on Sunday afternoon, adjudicator Nouch announced the awards.
The big winner was the Haines show, with awards for best production, best original play, best director (Sharon Shaver-Kennedy), and best actress (Nancy Naney). “The Valiant Villain” got two awards: me for best actor, and Sandy Nicholson best actress runner-up. As a relative newcomer to community theatre, I was stunned when my name was mentioned for the award. I think it really helped that I continued essentially the same character that I did in February in “Love in the Lodge”. The award was a carving of Yukon’s logo by Dawsonite Otto Beutler. I still have the carving, almost half a century later.
The award for best visual presentation went to Faro’s Pelly Players for “Strange Welcome”.
Following the adjudication, our troupe drove back in the van to Whitehorse. We arrived late in the evening, but still daylight thanks to the North-of-60 latitude and season.
The WDC performed “The Valiant Villain” in Whitehorse twice the following weekend — Friday at the Whitehorse YWCA, and Saturday at the Whitehorse Elementary School gym, along with a school production of “Rockin’ Robin”, a fun spoof of Robin Hood. Ticket revenue from those shows helped offset WDC’s costs associated with the festival, as well as ongoing expenses such as for heating the clubhouse.
As a collector of memorabilia, I also kept a copy of the program, several photos and news clippings, which I have scanned and used in this posting to help tell this story. Here are program listings for the six entries in the festival.
thebravestcanadian 