By Alex Rake (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: June 17, 2015
Miss Somewhere, a play written and co-directed by UFV alumna Cait Archer, is headed to the Theatre BC Mainstage in Kamloops after sweeping several awards at the Fraser Valley Zone Festival, including Outstanding Production and Achievement in Playwriting. But what is this winning play presented by the Chilliwack Players Guild all about?
The play follows the struggles of three 20-something best friends, Steph, Allison, and Nicky.
“It’s a play about friendship, most importantly,” says Archer. “It’s also about the fight you have with your demons, and how you can win even if you don’t win.”
Geneva Perkins, a fifth-year theatre student at UFV who won Outstanding Actress for her role as Allison, would agree; she says her character comes out of the play “not a complete and whole person, but stronger in her sense of who she is and what she wants.”
Perkins explains that at the beginning of the play, Allison has “just started taking antidepressants, which sort of mute all of her feelings. And so it’s her figuring out that she doesn’t actually want to mute her feelings. She wants to feel all of this range of emotion.”
Miss Somewhere debuted in an earlier form at UFV’s 2013 Director’s Festival. It was a one-act play featuring the same cast, minus a few roles.
“I’ve added a couple of extra characters,” says Archer, “because the boys were sort of just the supporting cast in this play, which is one of the reasons I wrote it — that year I was looking for a play that had good roles for women, because in 2013 we had a really good group of ladies in the theatre department.”
Archer insisted on finding a play that not only had good female parts, but “that isn’t about tanning, and that isn’t about boys — and that isn’t from the ‘80s because the ‘80s are a weird time for short plays.” Ultimately, she found she had to write one herself.
Since the 2013 production, the play has expanded both in terms of character and length. With this new version, Archer agrees that the play is more focused. Matt Janzen, who took the award for Outstanding Actor in his role as Allison’s ex-boyfriend Tony, celebrates the script’s development and the chance to do it again.
“We’re always growing and developing as actors and I think it’s important that your characters (and understanding of them) grow and develop as well,” he says. “Especially in cases such as this where you’re working with a new script over an extended period.”
Perkins also welcomes revision: “I think [coming back to a play] makes it stronger. The longer you sort of sit and let it marinate, the longer you have to actually figure out what you’re trying to say with it and the story that you’re actually trying to tell.”
There are further changes between the Zone Fest production of Miss Somewhere and the one to be seen at Theatre BC Mainstage.
“We’ve had a casting change — named Amanda,” Archer enthuses. “I think it’s amazing. It’s keeping everybody on their toes.”
Amanda Thiessen is filling in the role of Steph for Danielle Warmenhoven, who could not make the performance in Kamloops.
“I feel like I have a really wonderful support system,” Thiessen says, referring to her cast mates. “With the amount of support that I am being given … even if I do suck a big one, they’re going to make it so that it is not so terrible.”
She adds that directors Archer and Gabe Kirkley are “a wonderfully supportive team. They’re very honest.”
Archer explains that she and Kirkley, who were both awarded Outstanding Direction at Zone Fest, “have been working together creatively on productions since 2007, when [they] were in high school.” Eight years later, this second round of Miss Somewhere is their first time working together as a directing team.
Before the Theatre BC Mainstage performance in Kamloops on July 10, there will be a three-show run at the Langley Playhouse between July 3 and 4. Tickets are $15.
