After a 3-year hiatus students return to the stage in a North Bay, Ont. theatre festival
CBC
High school students from across northeastern Ontario will soon get to return to the stage in front of a live audience after losing out on those opportunities due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
After a three-year hiatus, students will gather in North Bay, Ont., for a four-day regional theatre festival, starting on Thursday, April 20.
"That sort of experience of performing and improving and all those things that go with putting on a play has been absent from kids' lives for all these times," said Chris Mogan, a drama teacher at North Bay's Chippewa Secondary School.
Mogan has been promoting the Nipissing Drama Festival, which was previously known as the Sears Drama Festival, but is now backed by the National Theatre School of Canada and Scotiabank.
He said schools from across northeastern Ontario will be represented at the festival where students will perform existing material and original plays.
"We're really encouraging students to write their plays," Mogan said.
"That's really where the freshest ideas come from."
North Bay actor Josh Bainbridge will be at the festival as an adjudicator to judge the students' performances.
The schools that perform the best will move on to a provincial competition.
In addition to the performances, Mogan said the festival will also include workshops on things like stagecraft and lighting.
"Putting on plays is something I've done all my life and there's a real electric energy to it," he said.
"It's like being on a sports team and always going to the championship and winning."