The city’s oldest theatre group is staging a comeback, with plans to combine stage and screen in its latest production, which will premier at the Paramount Theatre on March 29.
The Kamloops Players will present Almost, Maine as their spring production, a collection of stories set during a winter night, backed by the Northern Lights projected on the Paramount Theatre screen.
“It’s not really a town because they never got incorporated. It’s a very rural setting in winter, on a specific winter night. All of the vignettes happen at the same time at night,” explained director Jay Goddard.
Goddard said he had heard the Paramount was looking to build a stage for live theatre and proposed the Kamloops Players’ spring production for the spot. He said he is excited for audiences to see how it all comes together.
With each cast member playing two roles, the play will use a series of vignettes (short episodes) to tell stories of falling in love, out of love, unrequited love and different aspects of loving relationships.
“Each one is about relationships and love and different kinds of things that almost happen when people enter relationships,” Goddard said.
Part of the set will be projected on the screen, but the rest is being built with the Laughing Stock Theatre Society.
Kamloops Players president Rod DeBoice said he can’t thank Laughing Stock enough for the space, tools and experience it have shared.
“It’s really a tight-knit community and our collective success is what it’s all about,” DeBoice said.
That help is especially welcome after the Kamloops Players struggled to survive during the pandemic. Without live audiences to support productions, the group found itself in a tight spot, leasing space at the Stage House Theatre on Tranquille Road.
The group was at the Stage House for more than a decade, but after being limited by pandemic-related health restrictions, the organization was delivered another blow in the form of a flood.
In February 2021, DeBoice said a group of people who had taken up refuge on the roof of the theatre building ended up turning off the gas, which was used to heat the building. With cold weather and no one inside over a long weekend, no one noticed the resulting flood until it was too late.
“There was water running out the front door and the sidewalk on Tranquille looked like a creek. The water was up well over my ankles in there,” DeBoice said.
Already feeling the financial hit of the pandemic, the tens of thousands of dollars in damages from the flood meant the group had to vacate the Stage House.
That led to a whole transformation of how the Kamloops Players operate, switching to two productions each year, dubbed Spring Into Comedy and Fall Into Drama.
Now, building off the success of last year’s drama Gaslight, the group is pushing for more.
“We’re really excited. We’re in kind of a rebirth mode and we’re all really excited about it,” he said.
While the Paramount is only being used for Almost, Maine, the group has managed to secure a new venue after the Stage House (which is now home to the Effie Arts Collective).
For its fall production, a dark dramatic comedy called Ravenscroft, the Kamloops Players will take the stage at Pavilion Theatre, which will see less activity after Western Canada Theatre’s move to Kelson Hall. Time is also booked in the spring for the Kamloops Players’ 2024 spring production, though the play being staged is still to be determined.
The community theatre group, which was established in 1967, holds open auditions for members of the public and those without experience, but looking to gain some, are encouraged to apply.
“We take people who have never acted before, we’ll mentor them, teach them in rehearsals, mentor people who are interested in lighting or sound or building sets, whatever,” DeBoice said. “We’ll bring them in and mentor them and it’s all about making it affordable for the community and giving opportunities to people who are interested in the arts.”
DeBoice said anyone interested should sign up for the group’s newsletter by going online to kamloopsplayers.ca.
Showtimes for Almost, Maine begin on March 29, running until April 2, and then again from April 5 to April 7, all at the Paramount Theatre, downtown at Victoria Street and Fifth Avenue. Tickets are $29.93 (less for seniors and students) and can be purchased at the Kamloops Live box office, online at kamloopslive.ca or by phone at 250-374-5483.
