A prince of a girl, and a good dame boy
(win a free ticket)

Dec 9-19, Salmon Arm –

Win a free ticket! Thanks to the generosity of Shuswap Theatre, Shuswap News has two free tickets to give away for the December 9 opening night performance of their Christmas pantomime, ‘The Golden Bird’. Click on the contact button at the top of the page and tell us why you should win the tickets and you could be the winner. Deadline is December 7 and the winner will be notified by email.

Shuswap Theatre’s gift to the Shuswap this year is a Christmas Pantomime! ‘The Golden Bird’ was written by James Bowlby and is directed by Virginia Verma.

A pantomime has to have a prince played by a girl, and a crazy woman, the dame played by a man. There needs to be music and wonderful characters as well. ‘The Golden Bird’ has it all. The famous story of the theft of the golden apples, the golden horse, golden bird –- well it’s a golden show. How does the king deal with his loss? How does Widow Twankey cope with her son leaving to find the bird? Why won’t the royal children listen to the fox? Lots of questions to be answered in this wonderful Christmas romp.

How to you make a costume of a horse, of a golden bird? How do you get to have a mountain appear and then magically disappear? These problems and many more are currently being solved as Shuswap Theatre produces its annual Christmas pantomime -– ‘panto’ for short.

Attending a pantomime is a special Christmas treat for both adults and children. Pantos are performances based on traditional folk and fairy tales, such as Aladdin, Puss in Boots, Mother Goose. The formula is that the story is for the children and the jokes are for the adults. The show is always a lively mix of song, dance and slapstick in which a man plays the dame and a girl takes the part of the ‘principal boy’ — a mixed up world in which good always overcomes evil and everyone lives happily ever after.

The audience has to work almost as hard as the performers, whether it be joining in the songs, assisting in conjuring tricks, booing the villain and warning the characters to heed the special instructions, or cheering them on!

Director Virginia Verma, has assembled a wonderful cast for this fun-filled production. Many returning actors add their experience to create as much fun as possible:

Uther Radcliffe is playing Richard Twankey, the lead, supported by James Bowlby as his mother, Widow Twankey. Jordan Donatelli returns as the Fox, Madison Heiser is the principal boy, Prince Michael. Megan Abel will have a featured solo as Princess Patricia. Others in the cast are Fred Duck, Robert Gates, Thabo Caves, Nedine Scott, Darby and Kellen McEachern Corley, Alaura Bibby, Vitaliy Demens, and Derek Keegan.

Dancers from the Shuswap School of Ballet will also be part of the performance. Musical direction is by Peter Blacklock. The show is produced by James Bowlby, stage-managed by Sherry Bowlby and Aileen Brandt, with lighting by Jim Clayton, sound by Randy Brogden, and marketing by Monica Kriese. It takes a crazy, hardworking bunch to make a show, especially one like this.

The show runs December 9-12 and 16-19, 2010, Matinees are December 11, 12, 18, 19. Tickets are for sale at the door — adults $10, students $5. All shows start at 7:30pm (doors open at 6:30pm) except matinees which start at 1:30pm. For information call James Bowlby at 250-832-8383 or go to http://www.shuswaptheatre.com .