Quick As A Wink Theatre Society

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THE JOURNEY:

The Founding of Quick As A Wink Theatre

(Based on a speech made in 2004 by our founder Michelle Herx)

In spring of 2001 the Sam Slick Committee asked Michelle Herx if she would research stories about Windsor and come up with some little dinner theatre ideas that might be used during the Sam Slick Festival.
This began her 4-year journey into GLORY DAYS:
Michelle started her research right away at the West Hants Historical Society and was amazed at the rich history of the area. She was surprised to find out that there were 110 piano frames found in the ashes of Windsor's Great Fire of 1897.
There's a great story!
Michelle formulated a play spanning the year of 1897 and the Great Fire that burned Windsor to the ground, and brought it to the Sam Slick Committee. But, their response was not favourable. They felt it was too big of a production. So, Michelle kindly thanked the Committee for their encouragement and bowed gracefully off the committee so she could continue on the journey of Glory Days.
The year 2001 became a year of research at Historical Societies and the Public Archives of Nova Scotia reading newspapers printed in 1897 and following many, many story leads. It was in 2001 that Michelle created and developed her lead characters of 'Arabella Stannus' and 'Daniel Winkworth', a young couple in love. The first quarter of 2002 was writing time. After all that research, the story practically wrote itself. Several songwriters and composers were considered, but she approached Roger Taylor, Windsor's Co-Director of Dorian Hall Academy of Music, with the rough script. He was thrilled and agreed to act as the musical collaborator for the project, providing the music and orchestration for Michelle's story and lyrics.
By late spring 2002, Michelle was ready to take the great leap into the abyss and let readers critique the script. Re-writes, re-writes and more re-writes, then on to more scrutiny and more re-writes. It was only a few short months later that Michelle actually had a script! A real full-length musical production about Windsor! But NO ONE and NO WHERE to put it on! She asked for advice and was told that she needed to find a theatre company to take it on.
During the fall 2002, Michelle met with many local people asking their advise about whether they thought a community theatre could make it in Windsor. She handed out the script to local residents to see if they thought it was something Windsor would want. All of it received a positive response.
By December, a potential Board of Directors for a new community theatre was formed: Willard Wood, Helen Romans, Hugh MacNeil, Junie Hutchinson-Barnes, Stephanie Hagman, Pam Lawrence, Buddy McCully, Judy Tamsett and Dennis Herx, Michelle's husband.
In the New Year, January 2003, QUICK AS A WINK THEATRE SOCIETY was incorporated as a not-for-profit organization, and Nova Scotia's newest community theatre. They presented themselves to Windsor and to the world in their May Soiree Fundraiser 2003 and by August, they had prepared the street version of Scene 1 of Glory Days as a teaser of what was yet to come.
And here they are now. In a few short days, QUICK AS A WINK will open its premier production of Glory Days at Windsor's Imperial Theatre, hopefully to a sold out crowd, and there will be a renewed interest in the fascinating history of Windsor, and the spirit of Windsor.
Thank you Michelle and Roger, the talented cast and crew, and the countless volunteers! And, thank you to all the businesses and friends who have supported QUICK AS A WINK in getting the story of Windsor's Glory Days on the stage!
Originally published in 'What's Going On' in 2004.
Editor's Note: GLORY DAYS 2004 was a smash hit and was reprised as GLORY DAYS 2005 in Fall 2005.

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