J.D. POTIÉ
SHAWVILLE
Oct. 24-26, 2019
Last week, the auditorium at Pontiac High School (PHS) was packed, as over 100 people from the . . .
region gathered to take in the school’s first theatrical production of the new school year.
A collaboration of the Shawville United Church, the Pontiac Community Players and PHS, the production was Man of La Mancha, a comedic musical set inside a prison in Seville, Spain near the end of the 16th century.
The story takes the audience through the imagination of Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes.
Inspired by Cervantes’ book, The Adventures of Don Quixote, the story kicks off with Cervantes arriving at a prison where he undergoes a mock trial.
While giving his defense, he tells a story about a noble countryman named Don Quixote, who ends up going on a quest to make everything right in the world.
The first theatrical production inside the school’s auditorium since it underwent an overhaul of renovations over the course of the summer, the play was showcased at 7 p.m. on Thursday and Friday evenings, with a 2 p.m. matinee on Saturday.
Thursday evening, spectators started entering the building around 20 minutes before the start of the play to make sure they got the best possible view of the show.
Upon arriving at the front gate, spectators were handed a program of the show. The program was featured with two different kinds of artwork on the cover, each created by local contest winners. PHS student Hugh Perry’s drawing won the school’s Man of La Mancha Program Cover Design, while local artist Glen Hartle won the contest in the adults category.
According to the play’s director Greg MacIntosh, the reason for bringing Man of La Mancha to PHS was because it’s his favourite play and after the auditorium’s summer renovations all the elements that were needed to put it on finally came into place.
He explained that in order to put on the production, he needed a talented cast and a variety of lights to help guide the audience from one scene to the next.
“You need fancy lighting,” he said. “You’re in a prison. You’re in the imagination. You have all these different effects that you need. If you can’t do that, you can’t help the audience understand that now we’re in a prison; now, we’re in Don Quixote’s imagination.”
Put on with the help of around 30 people, the cast featured 21 folks, ranging from PHS students, to actors with the Pontiac Community Players and members of the Shawville United Church.
Among the cast were PHS music teacher Matthew Lottes starring in the roles of Cervantes, Quixote and Alonso Quijana; PHS principal Debra Stephens portraying Quijana’s housekeeper and PHS drama teacher Gord Graham impersonating the characters of the Duke and Dr. Carrasco.
Courtesy of a six-person band from Ottawa, equipped with flutes and saxophones, it was the first time that a play at PHS featured a live orchestra, MacIntosh said.
Production started at the end of July and MacIntosh explained that with each of the actors knowing their roles and practicing their lines regularly on their own time, there wasn’t much rehearsal needed to get everything up to snuff.
For MacIntosh, putting on the Man of La Mancha inside the newly renovated auditorium was a reason for great celebration and reminiscence.
Back in the 1970s, MacIntosh was featured in the very first musical put on at the school called My Fair Lady and with his former teacher helping him with the show backstage it felt like a true transition from one generation to the next.
“It’s like passing the gauntlet,” he said.
With so many people coming out to watch or participate in the production of the play, MacIntosh emphasized just how great it feels to be part of a tight-knit community like Shawville.
“It’s amazing,” he said. “That nice small-town energy where everyone comes together to make something happen, that we can have something like this here. There was just lovely camaraderie. That’s my drug of choice – that feeling of community.”
