Coal Town Memoirs

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Friday, February 19th, 2010
Friday and Saturday at 7:30 Saturday Matinee ot 2:00

If we were to drill down through the layers of history in the Comox Valley we would uncover a rich seam of stories, some shiny with promise for a prosperous future, others dreadfully dark as coal. We would hear the whispered voices of men and women who came from around the globe, eager to work incredibly hard in an unbelievably risky environment to reveal a wealth of possibilities for their children. We would encounter many artefacts of hope as well as skeletons of terrible sacrifice.
A new play by TheatreWorks called Coal Town Memoirs explores the intimate details of the lives of several characters from around the dawn of the twentieth century, bringing to light a detailed portrait of a community bursting into a new age of industrial development, of tensions between the captains of industry focussed on big profits and the pit workers who made them rich, of pioneering women and widows who struggled to survive without even the legal recognition of personhood. Who were these people who carved out a living in the dark underground tombs, who bore both children of joy and burdens of grief, whose courage and optimism, laughter, faith and creativity helped them to overcome the challenges of wilderness relocation, the cruelties of corporate greed, and the rampant racism of early multiculturalism?
Two gifted and award-winning performers, Kymme Patrick and Ross Stephanson, bring to life the intimate details of some of these famous and forgotten individuals. Both are professionally trained and experienced and are known to audiences in the Comox Valley for their passionate and nuanced performances. Their most recent collaboration was to write and direct and also act in last year�s TheatreWorks trilogy of new plays called Summer Dreams Of Shakespeare which involved over eighty talented individuals ranging in age from four to nearly seventy.
A special matinee fundraiser for the Cumberland Museum of Coal Town Memoirs will be performed Saturday which includes a museum tour. Tickets are $15 and are available at the museum, Laughing Oyster Books in Courtenay and Videos �N More in Comox. For more information go to www.theatreworksonline.ca or call TheatreWorks at 250 792-2031