Bridge players show their tricks

Let’s Play Bridge

Musical comedy presented by the Grand Cove Musical Theatre Group
Fri. October 2 – 7 p.m.
Sat. October 3 – 7 p.m.
Sun. October 4 – 2 p.m.
Grand Cove Caddyshack. Tickets: $7.50; on sale Mondays and Fridays from 1-3 p.m. at Caddy Shack or call Jo Dabrowski at 519-238-5156.

Grand Cove’s actors are back at it with another adaptation of life in the Grand Bend retirement community. This year, writer-producer-director Doreen Newell took her inspiration from the Cove’s most popular card game: bridge.
“It’s about the people playing bridge,” Newell says. “It highlights the type of characters we have in the Cove and the different walks of life. Everybody here has lived their lives, everybody has been captain of their own ship, everybody has their own ideas of what it should be.
“The Cove’s a melting pot. We’ve all walked our lives all over the world. We’re getting old. We have to come somewhere to melt down, and this is where, and this is a show about the meltdown (laughs).”
Building on the success of two sold out productions in a row, Let’s Play Bridge gives audiences what they expect: familiar music, great costumes, and local flavour.
“We incorporated the gossip of the Cove and the Bend,” Newell says, noting the importance of this last aspect, “and all the little funny things in every day life here. The familiar put into a story that’s not old hat.”
Newell writes what she sees, and the story is inspired by the characters she casts.
“Isabel Sweeney is the hostess with the mostess. Seeing Isabel walk around the park, she’s an elegant lady. She’s an immediate part. And she sings beautifully.
“Georgina Bellamy originates from Liverpool. She was at the wedding of one of the Jerry and the Pacemakers! She was a policewoman on duty for several of those things. She can slip back, after 30-odd years in Canada, into the Liverpudlian mode. She knows it.
“Peg Seller does all the costumes for here. She’s a magical fairy. She belongs in fairy land. She loves pretty things and creating. She lives in Never Never Land; make-believe land.
“Bev Breen is fairly new to the Cove. I felt when I put her in there, she could relate to the country scene. She typifies the typical Canadian from the country.
“Brenda Clark is the clown. When we had a winter teach-in, we gave everyone parts. It didn’t matter what we gave her, she could clown around and do it.”
To Newell, life at the Cove is “one big pantomime” and the play is a projection of what its characters believe are “the highlights of their lives”.
“It’s a really good sing-song with good humour,” Newell summarizes. “They’ll have a really enjoyable evening. It’s going to be a fun show with a lot of class.”
Tickets sell fast, so act soon.