CARLYLE - “But the band gets paid, right?” asked an incredulous audience member in 2023, astonished at the quality of the music and the band performance.
“Nope,” I replied. “All volunteer.” Now this is pretty impressive when we look at the quality of the musicians in the pit band – musicians like guitarist Morgan Turk, drummer Claude Poirier, and Paul Twietmeyer and often Lane Easton if he’s not on stage.
Then again, none of the actors are paid either. Nor are the writers, the choreographers, the set designers or sound engineers. Everyone contributes their time and talent. For free. For fun. Mostly.
“So, where does the money from the shows go?” is a common question. This is a pretty good question.
The Cornerstone Theatre production pretty much sells out three full showings each year. Considering that is over 200 seats at $25 a pop, that would seem to be a lot of money. According to my calculator, at least $12,000. Wow. That seems like a lot.
First of all, there are some costs involved in staging a high-quality production. Microphones, sound equipment, lighting, projectors, equipment to build sets and to replace props, just to name a few. And then there are things like programs, cleaning supplies, costumes and tech material.
But Cornerstone Theatre is pretty frugal because we have talented people on board. Folks like Twietmeyer, who volunteers countless hours building sets from scratch, repairing anything which breaks and creatively solving complex issues without going to buy new stuff.
Or Doug Waldner, Shannon Klatt or Craig Savill, who come to the theatre to fix, repair, clean and haul things.
People like Don Carter, who maintains and builds the webpage and organizes the program printing. Or Craig Savill, who organizes the bar, or Easton, who when he’s not acting and singing, is very handy on a vacuum.
But let’s start at the beginning. How does a show like this get put together?
The discussion about the Christmas production usually starts in July . Or May. Or February. When one of the theatre gang is brave enough to ask the question, “So, what are we going to do for the Dickens Festival this year?”
To be fair, Cornerstone Theatre (led by Dianne and Paul Twietmeyer) has been reinventing the Christmas Carol storyline for 20 years. So this is a good question.
The first few years of the festival were easy. Many professional adaptations have been written, and there were lots to choose from, including Christmas in Harlem and The Christmas Carol Project among many others.
But then those started running out and in-house adaptations started being written by Dianne Twietmeyer, Doug Waldner, Samantha Twietmeyer and Megan McAuley.
These include a female Scrooge as a bookstore owner, Scrooge in Space, Scrooge in Harlem, Western Scrooge, Pirate Scrooge (featuring an epic stage design) and the Muppet Christmas Carol with its great revolving stage pieces.
In 2024, the group said enough of the Christmas Carol and took the brave step to venture into another favourite topic: hockey. So this year’s production features a script written by Waldner titled It’s a Wonderful Hockey Life. No ghosts. No Scrooge. No bah humbug. Yikes.
And here is what the production looks like. Kind of. As briefly as I can make it.
In September, the cast is assembled and somebody volunteers to direct.
Dianne Twietmeyer in particular makes Herculean efforts to search out new talent within the community, and to invite them to join the Cornerstone Theatre Group. (Wait: did you know we did a version featuring Hercules?)
What is The Cornerstone Group? It is really just a pretty accepting and quirky club of people who happen to like theatre, music, each other, hanging out, good food and great conversations (not in any particular order).
Then the new group of likely suspects gets together and auditions for roles they might like to play this year.
Whoever is directing this year (in 2024 it’s Waldner) makes up a production schedule and we get into rehearsals.
The show needs to be cast, people need to learn their lines, become familiar with the music and work on choreography. Blocking needs to occur. Props need to be assembled and costumes created. We need to decide if David Slykhuis is playing a man or a woman.
The band leader and practice musician (often myself) comes along to each rehearsal and gets the music organized, chooses keys, figures out cues and works with the actors and directors.
This goes on from September to November, twice weekly, and countless hours of rehearsals, until about a month before performances, when the band comes into play.
The sound guy sets up, choreography occurs, costumes are determined and lights are set up. All the technical aspects are finalized.
Paul Twietmeyer gets artists like Marylin Carter and Marion Biram on board to come build and paint the sets. This is a big job, as the sets he designs are works of art, both elaborate and complex.
Somewhere in there, programs are designed and sent to printers, Don Carter gets all the ticket sales underway. The children are brought in for some small parts; chaos ensues.
The theatre gets cleaned. Megan reorganizes the entire costume zone and spends weeks purging and restructuring. Stuff gets fixed. Someone brings treats.
Theatre members hang out in the green room after rehearsals and have a bunch of good laughs.
Tickets are sold. Tickets are sold out.
But the band does not get paid, and neither does anybody else.
So why do it at all?
Some people play hockey. Some people play golf. Some people curl. Some people make theatre. Some people make music!
Community members volunteer in their own ways at the schools, the hockey rink, the golf course, the curling rink, the pool, in service clubs like the Lions who maintain the ball diamonds (etc) on The Dickens Committee, and in the Memorial Hall and Theatre and in so many other places around town.
It’s part of what makes living in a community so awesome. And part of what makes the Carlyle Dickens Village festival is watching all of these volunteers and organizations come together to create something unique each December.
