Take a Vacation - To the theatre!
Festival Antigonish , August 8th, 2008
ANTIGONISH, N.S. - Seasoned theatre goers know about it and vacationers will want to know about it too. Festival Antigonish Summer Theatre (FAST) calls it "five plays in three days" - a weekend that theatre enthusiasts and tourists vacationing in the province come to Antigonish and immerse themselves in what the Ottawa Citizen calls "one of the top five summer theatres in Canada."
From Thursday August 14th to Saturday August 16th Festival attendees can see all five plays currently on stage. "It's a very exciting time for us and we have quite a few fans who just love it," said FAST Artistic Producer, Ed Thomason. "They take a long weekend and make a vacation out of the whole event."
Those plays include: Main Stage productions, Sexy Laundry - a laugh-out-loud comedy, Victorian thriller, Gaslight and the Neil Simon Broadway hit, I Ought to be in Pictures. On the Family Stage, the rock musical, Godspell featuring the Festival Antigonish Young Company and a talented ensemble of local young performers. Stage 2, the venue for visiting companies, will present the award-winning play, Catalpa - The Movie. The play is based on a true story about a band of Irish expatiates in Massachusetts who sail the whaling ship Catalpa to the notorious colonial prison in Fremantle, Australia to free six Irish Fenian convicts. While the story takes place in 1875, the audience watches the story unfold through the eyes of a present-day writer whose lifelong dream is to make a movie based on the rescue mission.
With all five plays running that weekend - some two or three times during that time - theatre goers can take in any number of combinations of plays to suit their schedule. "It makes for a very special vacation," Thomason said enthusiastically. "Sunny California, Victorian London, The High Seas, The Holy Land...all in air-conditioned comfort!"
