A real life drama behind Sault-hosted drama festival (2 photos)

The 2019 QUONTA Drama Festival, hosted by the Sault Theatre Workshop and held March 13 through 17 at the Sault Community Theatre Centre went ahead as planned, but the involvement of the Elliot Lake Amateur Theatre Ensemble (ELATE) drama group in this year’s festival was a testament to the troupe’s determination in the face of a near-deadly disaster.

Three of the troupe’s members escaped when the roof of Elliot Lake’s Lester B. Pearson Civic Centre collapsed Feb. 21.

“We were scheduled to do our dress rehearsal that evening and Margaret Tompson my assistant director and Malin Johnson, the sound technician and I went in a little early to get things organized and while we were standing in the aisle in the theatre, the roof all of a sudden collapsed. It was a massive collapse, a section of the roof 60 feet wide and 60 feet long came down but we managed to survive it,” said Murray Finn, director of ELATE’s hockey-themed drama Shorthanded, speaking to SooToday at the 2019 QUONTA Drama Festival’s awards Sunday.

“Margaret was hit by one of the beams and has spent the last two weeks trying to recover,” Finn said.

Finn and Johnson were not injured.

“She wasn’t seriously physically injured. She was slightly injured and she’s healing, but the trauma of the experience is like being in a war,” said Finn of Tompson.

“She’s here today, and last night was the first time she was able to come to a show (when Shorthanded was presented at the Sault Community Theatre Centre Saturday evening).”

Tompson did not wish to be interviewed or photographed Sunday.

“It was a major accomplishment for her even to get to our show last night,” Finn said.

In the spirit of ‘the show must go on,’ Finn said “we’re recovering. We collectively felt we had to finish this project. We lost everything, we lost our sets, our props, our costumes in the roof collapse but we sat down and said ‘we need to be in the Sault and make this happen.’”

“We cobbled things together. Our carpenter built new benches for us, and because we lost our sets we just said ‘no sets,’ we’ll forget that. We lost our costumes and all the hockey equipment we had borrowed so we just cobbled together bit and pieces of what looked like hockey uniforms,” Finn said.

“We’ve had so much support and encouragement from all the people in the QUONTA region. They’ve been so helpful emotionally to us to give the support to keep on going.”

So how did it feel to present Shorthanded after such a traumatic experience?

“There’s a monologue at the start where a character comes out and pretends to be a goalie and says ‘Canada wins!’ and the moment he said that line the whole audience clapped and it just gave us so much power. It was wonderful,” Finn said.

Finn said Shorthanded will be performed in Elliot Lake next weekend, after which ELATE will take “a big rest, and figure out what we’re going to do in the future.”

“The part of the building we were in...will probably have to be dismantled,” said Finn, hopeful ELATE will find a new home.

Snow is blamed for the collapse of the roof of the Elliot Lake facility, which included an auditorium for theatre productions and other events, though the incident is still under investigation.

Ironically but fortunately, Finn also survived the 2012 Elliot Lake Algo Centre Mall roof collapse, in which two women died.

“I’m still dealing with the aftermath of that. You wake up in the middle of the night...it’s like having PTSD. You learn how to deal with it and set little goals for yourself to try and overcome how you feel. Sometimes you need help and to go talk to people and let go of some of that stuff,” said Finn (who also did not wish to be photographed Sunday).

“It’s been a difficult time for us,” said ELATE’s Jim Graham of the Feb. 21 theatre roof collapse, expressing thanks to QUONTA participants at Sunday’s award ceremony for the support the group has received from their fellow drama festival participants throughout the ordeal.

“Your encouragement has been heartfelt and we certainly appreciate that,” a clearly emotional Graham said.

Apart from ELATE’s Shorthanded, this year’s QUONTA festival offerings included the Sault Theatre Workshop’s Mending Fences by Norm Foster, directed by Harry Houston, the Gateway Theatre Guild of North Bay’s Our Town by Thornton Wilder, directed by Scott Fitzgerald, and This is How We Got Here by the Gore Bay Theatre, this year’s QUONTA Outstanding Production winner, by Keith Barker and directed by Walter Maskel and Andrea Emmerton.

The cast and crew of Shorthanded received a Festival Heroes award from QUONTA, while the Sault Theatre Workshop’s Sandra Houston, Linda Strom and Wendylynn Levoskin shared the stage manager/producer award.

STW’s Tim Bass won the Outstanding Male in Leading Role award for his work in Mending Fences, while the Sault’s Harry Houston was nominated for Outstanding Director (the nod going to Andrea Emmerton and Walter Maskell from Gore Bay), Mending Fences nominated for Outstanding Production (while the Gore Bay troupe won that award as well).