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SASKATOONEXPRESS - June 15-21, 2015 - Page 1
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Volume 12, Issue 24, Week of June 15, 2015
Saskatoonʼs REAL Community Newspaper
Barn Playhouse turns 25 Season to honour the people and the past Vickie Dyck has been the artistic director at the Barn Playhouse since its beginning (Photo by Sandy Hutchinson) Cam Hutchinson Saskatoon Express t is a special season at the Barn Playhouse. It’s one of gratitude and one of reflection, artistic director Vickie Dyck said of the theatre’s 25th anniversary. The Barn Playhouse hasn’t changed much over the years. The original barn, which must be approaching 100 years old, is now used to sell crafts. The ambiance is cozy and welcoming, just as it has always been. The seeds of the Barn Playhouse were sown when Dyck retired as a teacher and wanted to pursue her love of community theatre.
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“I had a conversation with my parents to brainstorm where I might do this. And I remember my mom saying, ‘If you could have your pick, where would you go?’ And I said, ‘I’d use the barn on the farm.’ “They both said, ‘OK, let’s try it.’ That first spring, we cleaned out the old barn – it was 40 by 30 feet. We had family come together and we washed walls. The barn hadn’t been used for over 40 years. We cleaned everything up. “We did Charlotte’s Web in a barn. It was perfect. We were thinking, ‘Well, you know, if we can do a few nights and have some people out, (we’d be happy).’ We ended up with 10 nights and with full houses – at that time we could fit 100 in at a time.
“That first year it had a gravel floor, and for the show we laid sod over the gravel. We knew it wouldn’t grow, but it gave some stability and less dust.” Dyck says her parents – Tina and Peter – were visionaries. With her father, there was a Plan A and a Plan B. “He said, ‘If we build onto the barn, would you try it another year?’ ‘Well, yes, of course. Are you sure you want to build another building?’ He said he intended to build another shed for his farm equipment. If the theatre didn’t work out, it was built like a barn on the back end of our old barn.” Machinery has never been housed in the building. The yard is dotted with old
machinery from crops gone by. It’s part of the experience. Urban meets the solitude of rural. Success came faster than Dyck could have imagined. “We almost tripled our size and we sold out that next year. It was an amazing experience to watch it blossom so quickly. We had friends and neighbours involved and we did auditions the next year. And it just grew. People from further and further away came to be a part of it. “We try to make it very much like the way we grew up, with hospitality and making people feel at home, like they are coming to be part of your family. (Continued on page 4)