From Sept 27 to Sept 29, the South Shore Players’ production of Locally Yours played to large crowds at the Lunenburg Central United Church Hall. While the performances were well received, it would not be fair to say the show went off without a hitch.
The collection of five short plays by local playwrights had been scheduled to run from Sept 20-29, and was meant to be the Players’ long-awaited debut performance at their new venue at 123 Empire Street in Bridgewater. However, on the evening of Wednesday September 18th at 11:18PM, two nights before curtain call, an email was sent to ticket holders, informing them that the show had been canceled, citing “circumstances beyond our control.”
Patrons were given the option of a full refund, or rescheduling their tickets for the following weekend (Sept 27-29). Customers who opted to reschedule were then informed that the venue had been changed, as well as the date. The Empire Street venue had not passed all the required safety inspections.
“It’s been a challenging and stressful week, especially for our backstage and box office/publicity teams,” says John Solman, vice chairman of the South Shore Players’ board of directors. “But everyone was buoyed by the positive responses from our Friday night audience.”
The decision to reschedule was not taken lightly. “We have a large cast and crew and getting them all together at a different time would not be possible,” Solman continues. “It was too late to do anything about the Sept 20-22 performances, so we concentrated our efforts on finding a new venue for the second weekend.”
When asked about the safety inspection issues at the new venue Solman explains, “The town [of Bridgewater] has the responsibility for renovating the space [at 123 Empire] and making it usable for public gatherings. This has included upgrading the floors, walls, ceiling, accessibility, exits, electric, washrooms, HVAC, etc.”
While these upgrades have gone smoothly, trouble arose in other areas.
“[South Shore Players] is responsible for whatever we require to make the bare room into a performance space,” Solman continues. “We chose to obtain real theatre seating, and have constructed risers to support them for the best audience experience. We were advised fairly late in the process that we would require an engineer’s certification for these risers. The process to do that is underway, but taking longer than we expected.”
These uncertified risers is what ultimately led to the last minute venue switch. And while time ran out to properly certify the seating in time for Locally Yours, the South Shore Players remain confident about their future in Bridgewater.
“Although moving the show to Lunenburg became the priority for this past week, we have made progress in Bridgewater, too,” says Solman, “We are working towards securing all the required approvals and expect to have all the issues resolved well before our Holiday show.”
Their all ages holiday show, The Prince And The Golden Egg will run from Nov 29 to Dec 8, and with a little help from Santa Claus and a local structural engineer, it will run at 123 Empire Street in Bridgewater.
