Living the Dream: The Canterbury Tales

Every year Bob Hutton, the music teacher, puts on a community theater piece to raise money for the music department. This year’s pick was an adapted version of “The Canterbury Tales.” He passed the word around and those that were interested, were guaranteed a part. At the first meeting six of us showed up and never left. We read through the script. The next day, Bob asked us individually what parts we wanted to play and what our schedules looked like for next three months.

An advantage of doing this show is that while we may pick one character from the on set, we are able to play up to three different characters during the narration of the other actor’s tales. I chose the role of the Prioress and was also able to play Allison: a dizzy adulteress, Hilde: the Miller’s cohort in stealing grain and a Knight who learns how to be truly virtuous.

We began rehearsals the first of November and opened the show last Thursday night. A month of that time I was in Oregon. Each actor had some last minute scheduling issues. Plus, the artist that was supposed to paint the set withdrew her offer two weeks before the show opened. Linda, a water color artist and the new 5/6th grade teacher’s wife, agreed to take up the challenge. Rye and Joon supplied all the costumes. Before they moved to Hoonah they were very active in Renaissance Fairs and Joon also directed some children’s productions. They were an abundance resource that added the necessary touches to making the characters come alive, but some of us didn’t have all our costume pieces until dress rehearsal. Even with all the glitches, everything came together.

They always say that bad dress rehearsal means a great opening night…well it’s true.
In addition to a smooth show the theater/church was packed, the largest turn out since Bob’s been directing.

Today, Saturday, is our last show. Through a few missed lines, improvisations, and quick changes we provided the folks of Hoonah an entertaining production and judging by the laughs they truly appreciated the show. The end of any production is bitter-sweet. It has been a huge time commitment, an incredible learning experience and now that we have finally arrived at Canterbury I wish I could stay longer.