OLDS — The École Olds High School Drama Club has taken on a big challenge.
They’re performing the famous musical Guys and Dolls at the Trans Canada Theatre.
Performances will be staged Nov. 25, 26, Dec. 2 and Dec. 3 at 7 p.m. Matinées will be staged at 2 p.m. on Nov. 27 and Dec. 4.
It’s the story of gamblers and the women who love them in the early 20th century in New York City.
The show premiered on Broadway in 1950 and was so successful that it ran for 1,200 performances and won a Tony Award for Best Musical.
Two of the performers in the show are Cairis Adams and Bethany Tinnion.
Tinnion plays Nathan Detroit, one of the main characters in the show. Adams plays Miss Adelaide, his long-time love interest.
Tinnion actually auditioned for another main gambler character, Sky Masterson, but she’s happy to play Nathan Detroit.
“He runs a floating crap game and he’s trying to find a place for it,” Tinnion said during an interview.
Tinnion loves the opportunity to play Nathan Detroit.
"He’s just a nervous little guy. He has a lot of funny lines and he tries really hard, but half the time he doesn’t succeed," she said with a laugh.
Miss Adelaide is Nathan’s fiancé. She’s been engaged to him for 14 years, yet is still trying to get married.
“She’s a show girl,” Adams said. “He is a dancer; plays in the Hop Box with all of the show girls. I have a lot of like really dancey, kind of upbeat sort of songs.
“Adelaide and Nathan, they have couple of fights and spats, but very funny, all very comical.”
Both Adams and Tinnion say Guys and Dolls is lots of fun to perform.
“It’s a lot more funny and stuff. It’s not a very well known one. But you know, the costumes and just all the set pieces,” Adams said. "Everything is really fun.”
Although it’s a musical, Tinnion says she doesn’t have many songs to sing.
But Adams does.
“I have quite a few. I think I have five or six in the whole play,” Adams said.
“Personally I’m pretty good with memorizing the lines for the songs. They’re honestly my favourite part. I love the singing of it.”
The musical was chosen in the spring, so the cast, which Tinnion and Adams figure numbers about 40, had the whole summer to learn their lines and songs.
Rehearsal started in September.
“I think it’s going to be really good,” Adams said.
Tinnion agreed.
"Definitely,” Tinnnion said. “You watch it all come together.”
Drama teacher Rhonda West says Guys and Dolls has been on the club's radar for a while.
"We've been wanting to do this one for years now and actually COVID stopped us from doing it in 2020," she wrote in an email.
