Audiences will have to a chance to appreciate some homegrown dramatic talent this week and next at R.D. Parker Collegiate, where high school actors will be performing three plays over three nights, including one penned by Thompson’s own Keyanna Boyko-Ouellette.
Boyko-Oullette’s play, described by RDPC drama teacher Janine Plummer as a fantasy-reality crossover, was one of the top five submissions in the Scirocco Drama Manitoba high school playwriting competition and was performed in Winnipeg last week. It’s titled “Beyond the Locked Windows” and will be performed June 3 and June 4 at the Letkemann Theatre at 7 p.m. along with a second play – “The Plot to Assassinate Chase Manhattan Bank.”
“The legend of the town is you have to have your windows locked or else these mythical creatures will come in, rob you, and steal your one child,” Boyko-Oullette previously described her play to the Thompson Citizen. “There is another mythical creature that is the guardian of the town that scares those mythical creatures away. It’s about this one girl, she’s around seven or eight and it was a summer night, and it was really hot out, so she unlocked her window and opened it a bit. They come in night after night and stuff happens.”
Boyko-Oullette, a Grade 9 student, travelled to Winnipeg in March and April to polish her play in workshops in preparation for the competition’s final performance and judging. Her play will be performed by actors from the high school as well as her two sisters, who go to Riverside School.
The second play is a comedy about a man trying to hold up a bank only everybody’s too nice for him to do it. It is being performed by Plummer’s Grade 12 drama class as their final project.
Each play is about 15 minutes long.
The following week, on June 9, also at 7 p.m., Plummer’s Grade 10 drama class will put on “10 Ways to Survive the Zombie Apocalypse,” a lighthearted look at possible ways to avoid becoming a zombie yourself, including the possibility of distracting the undead with romance.
“It’s very comedic,” says Plummer. “It’s all a bit kooky.”
All performances are $5 for adults and $2 for children 12 and under and tickets will be sold at the door.
