With their winter play set to hit the stage at Pontiac High School at the end of January, the Pontiac Community Players invited THE EQUITY behind the scenes for a look at how they prepare.
This year the theatre group is putting on a production of Boeing Boeing, a popular and influential farce by French playwright Marc Camoletti.
The plot centres on Bernard (played by Grant Moore) a Parisian playboy romantically involved with three different airline stewardesses (played by Emma Findlay, Sarah Malatesta, and Sydney Côté) without them knowing. Circumstances conspire so that all three are in town at the same time and hilarity ensues as Bernard, along his visiting friend Robert (Matt Lafleur) and his maid Berthe (Christine Rieux) try to contain the mayhem.
The players’ production of Boeing Boeing will be performed at the PHS auditorium on Thursday Jan. 29 and Friday Jan. 30 at 7 p.m. and on Saturday Jan. 31 at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. Tickets are $25 and are available at Hursty’s restaurant in Shawville (cash only) or via pontiaccommunityplayers@gmail.com.
Act 1: Nov. 3, 86 days to go
THE EQUITY first caught up with the players in early November, in the basement of Shawville United Church. The assembled cast and crew were seated around a table with their script books in front of them. The group plowed through as much as they could before taking a peek at their lines, or calling for their line from co-director Leona Lalonde or stage manager Carole Valin.
Co-director Greg Graham filled in that evening for Malatesta, who played the Italian stewardess Gabriella, with the full accent, which was well appreciated by the table.
This is Lalonde’s first production as a director, though she has plenty of experience acting in Players’ productions. She explained that they had chosen the play nearly a year in advance, and first brought together the cast in July.
“Greg and I did auditions throughout the summer for various parts, and then once we had everybody, in July we did a table read,” she said. “Our first real practice wasn’t until after Shawville Fair, Sept. 8.”
She and Graham have worked together extensively in the past, making the collaboration an easy one.
Graham said that he was happy to see new directors coming up within their organization, and added that Lalonde brought a lot to the table with her sense of humour and skill with blocking, or the placement of actors on the stage.
“It’s too much work for one human. It’s so much work. It’s been working well for us to share,” he said.
Act 2: Jan. 11, 18 days to go
By this time preparations had migrated to the auditorium at PHS and rehearsals were taking place on the set designed by Will Bastien. Extra attention was being paid to the second and third acts, and the actors were incorporating various costumes and prop elements, such as stage cigarettes into the mix (it is ‘50s Paris after all).
Graham explained they had previously invited an intimacy coordinator, Karine Charland with the Ottawa Little Theatre, to help the actors work through their more PG-13 scenes.
Bastien was changing around various props, adding polish here and adjusting a wall hanging there. Having studied set design at John Abbott College, he was in his element and pointed out his favourite piece of the bunch, a period-correct hi-fi cabinet that he sourced on Facebook Marketplace.
“Every time I do a set, it’s amazing what comes out of the woodwork,” he said, adding that the couch that makes up the centrepiece of the set was sourced from across the hall in the teacher’s lounge.
At the end of a day-long practice, Lalonde said she was pleased with where they were, though she thought the troupe needed to develop some speed with their lines, which comes with repetition and confidence.
“They need to be quicker, and once they’re quicker, the emotions come and the relationships between the characters become much better much faster,” she said, adding that they had scheduled some additional practices during the week to fine-tune certain scenes that needed attention.
Graham offered his advice throughout the practice, even sitting in the middle of the audience and bellowing out laughs to help simulate an audience and help the actors work on their timing.
He added it’s really gratifying to see the continuity among the different generations of the theatre group working on the project.
“I’m so proud because I see myself as kind of the middle generation, right? There’s that first generation of Pontiac Community Players who got us founded and started in like 2000, Joan Conrod and a bunch of retired teachers, people like [crew members] Carole [Valin] and Marguerite [Carmichael] have been helping out with plays since that,” he said. “People like me and Leona, we’re kind of that middle generation, who did a lot of those plays at Coronation Hall. Some of these kids, they’ve grown up with this. Emma’s been helping backstage since she was a teenager, like a tween. I remember casting Grant for A Christmas Carol as Tiny Tim in like 2014, when he was like 11 or 12. Same with Will. Seeing this whole new generation of actors and people come up who want to run with it and do things is really kind of cool.”
Act 3: Jan. 18, 11 days to go
At the third and final rehearsal witnessed by THE EQUITY, some more costumes made an appearance, though some were in need of adjustment. When things wrapped up, Lalonde applauded the fact that she hadn’t heard anyone asking for a line, though they had received some more subtle prompts from the backstage crew.
There was also some time devoted to choreographing the cast’s bows, which is more complicated than one might think, given the six entrances on a stage that can barely accommodate the whole cast standing side by side.
Bastien said that he doesn’t have a lot of mid-century furniture and props in his collection, which made it an interesting challenge.
“It was fun to design a ‘50s Parisian apartment that was specifically not Austin Powers, because my initial design was very Austin Powers,” Bastien laughed. “Just an absolute dog bachelor pad, where you know the guy who lives there is horrible.”
Their budget for props is modest, and he said that they have a good relationship with the local thrift store at Shawville United Church.
“Every prop is categorized as want, need, dream,” he said. “Sometimes you don’t get all the needs, that’s community theatre.”
Bastien went on to say that they had a lot of fun with the set dressing, going so far as to colour coordinate each of the stewardesses outfits and even towels.
“Bernard has a system. His maid makes a remark that the organization is ‘inhuman’ in the apartment and so we kind of lean into that,” he explained. “Like, what are some of the worst ways someone could plan their lives around having three girlfriends? And so he colour-coded them [ . . . ] He has three paintings that get changed out per girl, and they’re a landmark of each one of their countries. He says he loves them all equally, he does keep it very fair in his polygamy, but it’s still very much, ‘Oh my god.’”
Bastien said that sharp-eyed play attendees will see some humorous titles on the apartment’s bookshelf.
Graham said that comedy is all about timing, and this was the phase of rehearsals where they start to dial in the finer details.
“This is the most exciting part of the play [ . . . ] Now it’s putting in all that last little five per cent that takes you from good to great,” he said. “All those things like reactions, character reactions, being able to improvise with each other when things change, being able to express all the tiniest little emotions.”
He said that he was happy the organization could get to a place where they could pull off a play of this calibre.
“It’s a bit clichéd, a guy trying to keep the girlfriends hidden from each other, but this play is what got all that started, a lot of those comedies from the ‘70s and ‘80s totally ripped this one off,” he said. “This is a very influential and very famous play. Marc Camoletti was one of the great French comedians of the 20th century and this was his most popular play. It’s a ton of fun, and it’s like a rite of passage for a community theatre, can we do Boeing Boeing?”
Lalonde said that they would be focusing on things like costume changes and using their props in the coming practices before opening night on the 29th. Though it was a lot of work, she said she was pleased with how things had turned out.
“I’m so proud of this, as a first-time director directing it. I’m proud of everyone we picked, I couldn’t have picked a better bunch of actors, I couldn’t have picked a better man to work with than Greg,” she said. “He and I have known each other since pre-K, so we’ve been in theatre together for probably 100 years. So we work very well together.”
