An actor who has captivated the audiences in most of the productions staged by the Kamsack Players over the past eight years, and a pianist who is vigorously applauded at Community Choir concerts have been at work for about six months learning their parts for a new production.
With Adrian Hovrisko as the only actor in the production, and Marilyn Marsh providing the music, the Kamsack Players Drama Club is staging Dad’s Piano by Dave Kelly.
The one-hour play will be staged at the Kamsack Playhouse on November 5, and then it will be re-staged at Theatre Saskatchewan’s TheatreOne festival being held in Regina November 17, 18 and 19.
Leanne Keys, now of Yorkton, is the director and Jack Koreluik of Kamsack is the producer.
In the play, a son promises to play the piano at his dad’s funeral, Keys explained recently during a rehearsal. It was a sweet idea at the time, but what happens when the end is near and the relationship between father and son isn’t as sweet as it was? Will the son keep his promise?
Dad’s Piano is a story told by two performers, she said. They are the pianist who plays great classical pieces that Dad himself had played, and the actor who plays all 10 characters who tell the story of a son and a father in his final days.
Hovrisko has had the script for several months, and Marsh has been working on the music since April.
“It’s all classical music,” Marsh said during the rehearsal, adding that of the 13 pieces that she has to play on stage, she was familiar with about half of them, the rest she’s had to learn.
Most of the audience will be familiar with all the music, she said.
“I picked out this play about three years ago,” said Keys, who after leaving Kamsack has become a member of Yorkton’s Paper Bag Players. “It’s a different play. I had never seen anything like this. I loved the story of a relationship among family members.”
Hovrisko plays the 10 characters: the son, the father, his mother, a next door neighbor, a construction worker, a piano salesman, a piano adjudicator, his ex-wife, a hockey coach and a nurse, Keys said. He does it with no costume changes; it’s all done by subtle character change in voice and mannerisms.
The author, Dave Kelly, a member of the Lunchbox Theatre in Calgary, had wanted a play with music but not a traditional musical, so he wrote the play from an experience of a pianist friend of his, Keys explained. The Lunchbox Theatre staged it
“Asmall masterpiece with a big heart,” said Bob Clark of the Calgary Herald newspaper, when reviewing the production.
“I did not want Dad’s Piano to end,” said Louis Hobson of the Calgary Sun newspaper.
“It’s a beautiful play,” Keys said. “I really wanted to stage it with Adrian. I knew he would sink his teeth into all the character work he had to do.
“It’s been really great working with him again,” she said.
Most recently, Keys starred in Wit at the Kamsack Playhouse and Hovrisko was in that cast, and then in 2011 she directed him and Kristen Doyle in Tuesdays and Sundays.
“This is the most challenging role I’ve taken on,” Hovrisko said.
