Local theatre group Pontiac Community Players hosted its annual general meeting on Apr. 25, during which it summarized its 2025 activities, presented a positive financial report and foreshadowed some of the projects under way for 2026.
The meeting held at the Shawville Community Lodge brought out several new members interested in getting involved with the group, which has existed as a “shoebox operation,” according to board president Greg Graham, since 2000, and became a non-profit in 2022.
The 2025 year opened with the production of the Norm Foster play Halfway There, directed by Val Twolan-Graham with assistance from Sydney Côté, which took the stage at Pontiac High School (PHS) at the end of January.
“Norm Foster plays I have a particular affinity for because he developed plays for small Canadian communities,” said Twolan-Graham, noting it wasn’t the first of his plays she’d directed with the Players. “When I go to the theatre and watch his productions, I go, ‘I can see that happen in our community.’”
Over the summer, the Players put on their first travelling show, Twain’s Tales, directed by Will Bastien and Darlene Pashak, in which actors performed the play atop a converted hay wagon in five different Pontiac communities. Bastien said aside from one particularly hot day, and some precarity around transporting the hay wagon from town to town, the production went well.
The group awarded $200 bursaries to three graduating PHS students who had demonstrated a love of theatre. Recipients were Isaac Graham, Callum Maloney and Allie Benoit. The Players also made a $1,500 donation to the Pontiac High School auditorium following its use of the space for the Halfway There show.
Provincial FRR funding received from MRC Pontiac enabled the Players to purchase new LED stage lights, which makes it possible for the group to put on shows in a greater diversity of spaces.
The year ended with preparations for the group’s first show of 2026, Boeing Boeing, which took the stage at PHS in January.
Financially, Pontiac Community Players ended the year with more money in the bank than the group started with. Its net assets are now at $9,047, $2,709 more than they were at the end of 2024.
The non-profit plans to apply for new FRR funding to help it develop a website this year, and has secured three quotes for its application.
Members re-elected Greg Graham and Marguerite Carmichael as board directors, who will continue in their roles as president and secretary, respectively. Côté was elected to join them, filling the vacancy left when Twolan-Graham stepped down this fall after being elected mayor of Bristol. Will Bastien and Rick Valin remained on the board as their seats were not up for election.
On top of the website plans in the works, Graham said the group is also developing a week-long summer theatre camp for local youth, to potentially be launched in 2027, and is close to sharing an audition call for this year’s summer production about the last days of a Pontiac dance hall, to be set at Coronation Hall.
“It’s the summer of 1960, and six youths are coming to what they think is the last dance of the summer, but they don’t know that it’s the last dance forever,” said Graham, teasing the plot.
“It’s based on all the stories people have told me about things they have gotten up to at the dance hall, [at Coronation Hall] or at other dance halls around the Pontiac. It’s going to feature live music composed by Matt Lottes, and there’s going to be dancing, and then we’re going to have this story playing out at the same time.”
He said the group is also in the very early stages of planning another winter play, as has become an annual tradition.
