Twenty-five years ago, the Westlock Rotary Dinner Theatre series began with a production of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.
It was a pretty daring choice for its first show, considering Westlock is a small town in rural Alberta. On Oct. 13 the annual dinner theatre series returned to its roots with yet another production of the show, which will run various nights until Saturday, Oct. 28. At this point, we’ll note that this is not the 25th anniversary of the show, as it took a couple of years off somewhere in that two and a half decades. Nonetheless, there have been over 20 plays put on by the Rotary Club.
These include Show Boat, A Closer Walk with Patsy Cline, Meshuggah Nuns, Oklahoma, The Honky Tonk Angels and a couple plays written by director Bunnie Arth.
We’d just like to say something about how great it is this fundraiser has kept running for so many years. How many small town events keep going for so long, outside of the annual fair?
The details of how this annual production got started are a little fuzzy — we ourselves have told a few different versions — but we know that it began in 1992 after Bunnie and her husband Dick offered to put on a show to raise money for the club, as well as to celebrate the opening of the Westlock Community Hall.
Bunnie and Dick deserve credit for their part in keeping this event going for so long, but many, many people have been involved in these productions over the years, including the actors, musicians, costume designers and stage crew. Some of them have even been part of the cast and crew for years and years on end.
Off stage, there have also been dozens of volunteers who have helped prepare and serve food, as well as sell tickets.
All that combined effort has resulted in over $1 million raised, which has gone to causes like sponsoring the Rotary Spirit Centre, building the Rotary Trail, funding a CT Scanner at the hospital and various other humanitarian projects.
If you were a part of the show, or even if you just took in a play one year, then you have also contributed to all that good. Hats off to you.
