WHITEWATER REGION — Every year, the Whitewater Region Public Library and its volunteer advisory board must undertake a certain amount of fundraising to supplement the annual grant from the Township of Whitewater Region in order to operate its three branches in Cobden, Beachburg and Forester’s Falls.
This year, the Library is trying something a little different as part of that fundraising effort: a series of three performances called “Encounters with Great Writers”, held a few weeks apart this fall, each in a different Whitewater Region church.
The first of the three writers created his most famous work almost 2,000 years ago; the other two were coincidentally born in the same year (1874), and wrote their first best-sellers in Canada in the first decade of the 20th century, although on opposite ends of the country. Their words will be brought to life by three celebrated Ontario actors.
The first evening, Thursday, September 20 at Whitewater Wesleyan Community Church on Cedar Haven Road in Cobden, will feature a dramatic reading of The Gospel of Mark with award-winning actor Kenneth Welsh. Mr. Welsh has appeared on stages from Stratford to Broadway, on television in series like “Twin Peaks” and “Love and Hate”, and in dozens of films. His interpretation of the Book of Mark (in the glorious King James translation) has drawn rave reviews across the country, including from an extended run at Soulpepper Theatre in Toronto.
The second evening, Wednesday, October 17 at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Cobden, will be “Maud of Leaskdale”, a one-woman play drawn from the powerful journals of Prince Edward Island novelist Lucy Maud Montgomery. Soon after publishing Anne of Green Gables in 1908, Montgomery moved to Ontario with her new husband, a Presbyterian minister, and became a mother, pillar of the community, and wildly successful writer. She underwent the trials of the Great War, the death of her closest friend in the Spanish flu epidemic, and the slow descent of her husband into madness. All of this is crammed into a riveting night of theatre starring Jennifer Carroll, the only actress to ever perform this play.
The final evening, Wednesday, November 7 at St. Andrew’s United Church in Beachburg, is titled “Gold Rush to the Great War”, and features more than a score of poems by the Bard of the Yukon, Robert W. Service. The first half will feature Service’s Klondike poems, such as “The Cremation of Sam McGee” and “The Shooting of Dan McGrew”. But after leaving the Yukon, Service served as an ambulance driver in the First World War, and it is his powerful war poetry that will be featured in the second part of the evening, timed to coincide with the centennial of the end of that war. The poems will be interpreted by Conrad Boyce, who first was drawn to Service while working in the Yukon 40 years ago. Boyce is now based in Cobden, and is co-ordinating the series on behalf of the Library Board.
All three churches are donating the use of their sanctuaries as their own contribution to the Public Library. Tickets for each evening are only $20 and are available at The Candle Wick in Cobden. You may also book your tickets with Mr. Boyce directly by calling 613-639-9250 or e-mailing him at [email protected] . You can save $10 by booking all three “encounters”; the package will only cost you $50 instead of $60.
As a public library, the WWRPL is dedicated to bringing the best of the written (and spoken) word to the people it serves. St. Mark, Lucy Maud Montgomery and Robert Service have written words that will live forever. This is your chance to experience the power of those words and support your library while doing it.
