We’re on stage and a week away from opening Gary Kirkham’s Queen Milli of Galt. What a script! The playwright deftly moves from scenes that are so funny that they’re cracking the actors up in rehearsal to scenes where tears are streaming down their faces. The writing is so deft that the story lifts off the page with an ease that is reminiscent of the best dramatists and humorists of the theatre. I love this play!

The cast gathered together around this show is superlative. They're generous and funny and almost always on time! Rehearsals are pure joy. The set shimmers in Becky Halterman’s lights. Scenes transform seamlessly from one emotional moment to the next, supported by Luke Ertman’s evocative soundscape. Somehow we’ve climbed inside the world of the play with a courageousness that looks a lot like faith in something bigger.

And the story really is about something very big, yet small and intimate. It’s about holding out for love, that “something” that passes between people, inviting them into the possibility of moments of joy. And I think our production might just be an incarnation of joy released through the love of creating something ridiculously funny, yet powerfully poignant in the same breath. And that certainly is something worth pouring the energy of cast, stage management, designers and this director’s waking moments into.

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