Rosebud Theatre

Alberta’s premiere destination for live theatre & delicious food.

Welcome!

On behalf of our artists, students and staff, welcome to Rosebud Theatre’s 2019 season! Artistic Director Morris Ertman has crafted a season of stories we can’t wait to share with your
family, friends, and loved ones.

When you subscribe to a season at Rosebud Theatre, you are doing more than buying tickets. You are directly impacting the lives of our students by believing in them as emerging artists. You are supporting professional actors and designers from across Canada who call Rosebud home during their productions. You are investing in rural Alberta and showing faith that a hamlet of 100 can make a difference in the lives of over 30,000 arts lovers every year. Lastly, you are helping tell stories that matter — stories of hope, joy, and forgiveness. Stories that can’t be told without you. You are the hero in our story and we can’t thank you enough.

Frank Nickel

Executive Director

Live Life!

Sometimes we just need to be transported out of the ordinary of our lives. We want to believe there could be an abundance of good in the world. We want to believe that we can be a part of that goodness and that our lives will actually add up to something wonderful. Rosebud Theatre and its company of resident artists live to tell stories that add up to something wonderful.

So, we’ve put together a season of plays under the heading “LIVE LIFE!”

We’ll visit the hotel room where civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. spent the last night of his life talking to an angel who helps him see the impact of his large inspiring life. We’ll take a journey with a young woman who discovers the unexpected story of her grandmother—a story that leads from Nazi Germany to the podium of the Academy Awards where she shares the stage for Best Picture with Sydney Poitier. We’ll visit a frazzled 1950’s childhood Christmas where everything that possibly can does go wrong, but the bonds of family and the memory of that crazy Christmas season gets funnier. We’ll watch Daddy Sherry—the oldest man in the world—mount a trapeze on his 111th Birthday, baffling a CBC Reporter who is not quite prepared for W.O. Mitchell’s larger than life character (reprised by Rosebud favourite Nathan Schmidt). We’ll open our season with the Canadian debut of a musical co-written by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell. Yes, Steve Martin—the comedian who starred in The Jerk, Roxanne, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, and Father of the Bride! Steve Martin is a banjo player, and this musical shows off the bluegrass virtuosity of he and Edie Brickell. Bright Star is the story of a professional woman in the late 1940’s who is reunited with a son she never knew, and in the process, rediscovers her high school sweetheart. Love wins—the music of it carried on the sparkling chords of a bluegrass banjo.

Our 2019 Season is filled with stories about people who live life fully. They’re the best stories—the ones where living life to the fullest creates drama that gives us everything from laughter to tears to deep and abiding gratefulness for the gift of it all.

Come join us in Rosebud and “LIVE LIFE!”

Morris Ertman

Artistic Director

At first glance, Rosebud is a typical prairie hamlet. Nestled in a cozy river valley that winds through fields of wheat and magnificent badlands, Rosebud is a peacefully picturesque community with rural roots and country charm. There is no gas station, no convenience store, and fewer than 100 residents, but Rosebud is a vital tourist and fine arts community visited by over 35,000 people every year.

In 1973, LaVerne Erickson, started the Rosebud Camp of the Arts as a summer outreach program for Calgary youth who had rarely been outside of the city. The summer programs soon expanded into weekend vacations throughout the school year and in 1977 the Rosebud Fine Arts High School was formed with five students attending.

As part of Rosebud’s centenary in 1983, the School’s drama department launched the Rosebud Historical Music Theatre. Staff and students wrote the play, rehearsed it, and performed it on an outdoor stage, drawing hundreds of interested theatre goers. Thus began the widely-acclaimed Rosebud Theatre which now attracts thousands annually to its productions.

Fast-forward to today and Rosebud School of the Arts is now a post-secondary guild school focussed on theatre, music and creative arts ministry training and Rosebud Theatre produces professional plays throughout the year at two venues, the Rosebud Opera House and at the BMO Studio Stage. Offering matinee and evening shows up to seven times a week, each Opera House performance includes a full buffet and live dinner music in the quaint setting of the historic Haskayne-Kenney Mercantile.

Rosebud Theatre, however, presents more than theatre, we offer an experience. From the moment you step into your vehicle to make the journey to Rosebud, to your return home, your visit in our community and the captivating story on stage will create fond memories. Soon you will be planning your next visit.

Rosebud Theatre is located on Highway 840, in Rosebud, Alberta, Canada approximately 100 km northeast of Calgary, and 35 km southwest of Drumheller. The name Rosebud derives from the native term Akokiniskway, which means “valley of roses.”

Mission Statement

Rosebud Centre of the Arts (RCA) is the overarching company that includes Rosebud Theatre, Rosebud School of the Arts and Rosebud Mercantile. The mission of RCA is to enrich lives by expressing and reflecting God’s gifts of hope, joy, forgiveness and love through the arts.