Who are we?
The JM Olds Collegiate drama club was formed in September 2002. It's
a group of students, anywhere from grade 7 to 12, who enjoy acting and would like to put off a play for the students of JM
Olds and the people of the town of Twillingate. We get together a few times per week and really have a lot of fun working
on the plays.
What plays have we done?
To date, the "Thespian Tigers" have performed three plays: "Happily
Never After" (a story of a fairy tale writer who has to turn into a marriage councellor to fix the relationships she created
in her stories), "How Mr. Mercer Stole Christmas" (the classic Grinch tale retold using one of the teachers at JMOC) and,
more recently, "Seven Wives for Dracula" (a story of how far one man is willing to go to get what he wants).
We performed "Happily Never After" for the town in early June 2003, "How Mr. Mercer Stole Christmas" at the school Christmas
concert in December 2003, and in April of 2005 we took "Seven Wives for Dracula" to the regional drama festival
in Gander, NL. We also turned it into a dinner theatre for a night and performed that on May 6th. It went
over really well and a great time was had by all.
For the 2005-06 school year, Aaron Froude wrote a play which is a continuation of "Seven Wives", entitled
"Dracula Rebuilt: The Creation of a New Beginning". We still have quite a few of the original cast members to play the
same parts they played in "Seven Wives", but we've also welcomed some new hands, so it's quite fun. We took Dracula
Rebuilt to the Regional Drama Festival on April 11/12, 2006.
Who is our director?
Our original directors were Ms. Darlene Dove and Mrs. Paula Sweetapple,
teachers at JM Olds, but sadly, Ms. Dove moved away in December 2004 and Mrs. Sweetapple took the position as principal
at a school in Gander Bay in September of the same year. Now we're under the direction of Ms. Brenda Winter.
What else have we done with the club?
In April 2003 we went to Gander to watch the drama festival that year.
We were meant to be in it (with "Happily Never After"), but we weren't ready when the time came so we just watched.
In November the same year, we went back to Gander to watch a monologue
being performed. I think that had an effect on all of us.
On May 5th, 2005, we went to Gander once again to watch two plays on Canada's aboriginal people, put
off by a production company called "Red Sky".
What are our plans for the future?
We hope to keep the club running as long as we can, but Mrs. Winter is
only teaching at JMOC part time now (plus we lose several of our members at the end of each year due to graduation), so it's
possible that the Thespian Tigers might not be around for many more years. Having said that, though, there are at least some
of us who want to keep the club going as long as we possibly can, so we should have no trouble with that. A few of us
have been with the club since the beginning and we call ourselves "seasoned veterans"!!!
