After a 20-month extended intermission, Oakville's West End Studio Theatre (WEST) is bringing community theatre back to the Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts tonight.
WEST is presenting the holiday play Home for Christmas this week, now running until Sunday, November 20, 2021 at the Oakville Centre's main stage. Directed by Yo Mustafa, the play is based on Lloyd C. Douglas' 1937 novel and dramatized by Anne Coulter Martens.
This production is a big milestone in the waning days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Live, indoor events only recently returned in Ontario, and WEST began work on the show in early September as soon as the Oakville Centre's long delayed reopening to the public was confirmed.
"It feels great being back," says director Mustafa. "The Oakville Centre is where we do our shows. It’s our second home." In our interview for Oakville News, he repeatedly stressed how emotional and cathartic it's been for the cast and crew to come back to work at the theatre.
"The cast and crew have been working on the show for three months, and you can tell that everyone missed it," he continues. "Everyone missed the family feeling of making community theatre at the studio. We heard lots of people say, 'Oh my god, it feels so good to be home' this week.”
Home for Christmas will be the first play at the Oakville Centre since the Oakville Players staged Footloose back in March 2020, closing just five days before the first COVID-19 lockdown closed most venues in Halton. But this is also the first performance from WEST in nearly two years; their last show was Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in February 2020, also on the Oakville Centre main stage.
Audiences have two ways they can see the show: you can come in-person to the theatre in downtown Oakville (with proof of vaccination for those 12 and up) or buy a live stream ticket to watch the show from home simultaneously with the live performance.
Coming back to the theatre is an emotional experience for the acting company. Linda Spence, who stars as Nan Clayton, says "Getting back on stage and being part of storytelling for the audience is fuel for my soul."
Her fellow actors share similar sentiments; cast members Brian Melanson is grateful the show "helps us escape from the real world and bring theatre back to folks who are also looking for an escape," while Ilene Elkaim says working on the show has "rekindled an essential and soul enhancing connection with my local performing arts community."
The show's official description reads: "In this charming, humourous, Christmas tale, the Clayton family has scattered to every part of the country. Some of them have been successful and some have difficult problems. Their mother isn't well and this may be her last Christmas. In an effort to turn back the clock and relive Christmas from their childhood, the family comes together to recapture something they seem to have lost."
After this week's show, Mustafa says WEST is focusing next on their Winter 2022 classes at the studio and their next production, The Laramie Project, coming to the Oakville Centre in February 2022.
Mustafa says this show is a "resuscitation" for the studio, which has been financially devastated by the pandemic. With almost no revenue for a year and a half, the studio recently downsized and had to sell more than half of its warehouse, rehearsal and studio performance space.
But why is it so important the community comes back to the local theatre? As he says, "It’s good for the soul. Live entertainment was hit hard by COVID-19 because its audience oriented. If there’s no audience there’s no show, so it's important to support the local theatre and all live theatre. Period."
Mustafa goes on to say, "Supporting local business means supporting the theatre business - here in Oakville, Halton, in Canada or in Timbuktu - it doesn’t matter. People need to support the local business and mean it."
Home for Christmas is now running at the Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts at 130 Navy Street until Sunday, November 20, 2021. Tickets for the in-person performances and streaming at home are available here online through the Oakville Centre box office.
The Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts is a division of the Recreation and Culture department of the Corporation of the Town of Oakville that operates with additional support from the Ontario Arts Council, Canadian Heritage and a number of generous sponsors.