If you’re a fan of local history, you’ve probably already got your tickets for Tale of a Town Prince George. It’s a travelling oral history production making its BC debut in the city this weekend.
Artistic producer Katie Swift says her team conducted interviews for two weeks and spoke with more than 70 locals in preparation for the show. Tale of a Town was created by Fixt Point and got its start on the east coast before gradually making its way west, gathering stories along the way.
How do the show’s creators find stories when they arrive in a new place? Swift says it’s mostly about word of mouth.
“The biggest, greatest way that it happens is we meet a few people when we drop in and they tell us 5 people to go to or 10 people or 20 people and so it usually is this snowball effect.”
The show seeks to capture community memories of main streets but Swift says it’s not just about the past and the team talks to locals of all ages.
“Someone who has been here a really long time and has memories from way back when may have some great, great stories. But also some younger people with a perspective on the downtown right now or where it’s headed or a young business owner can also add a great great perspective to the stories we collect.”
Still, Swift says there is a sense of recording living memories, for posterity and for future generations.
“We’re creating this national oral history archive, essentially. It’s a document of people’s stories of main streets all across the country, all from their own perspective.”
After Prince George, Swift and the team will head up to the territories. Once they’ve recorded stories from all across the country, Tale of a Town will enter its next phase.
“It’s all leading up to Canada’s 150th birthday in 2017. We’re actually going to be creating a nationally touring show, based on all the interviews we’ve done about main streets across the country.”
The Prince George show features archival photos, shadow puppetry and live music by local musician Naomi Kavka. It is a collaboration between Fixt Point, a Toronto-based theatre and media company, and local Theatre North West. The show opens on Friday at the Ramada Hotel and wraps on Sunday, March 6, which also happens to be the city of Prince George’s 101st anniversary.
If you haven’t booked your tickets to yet, you may have to wait for the 2017 production as this weekend’s events are all sold out. In the meantime, you can visit Tale of a Town’s website for a selection of stories and collected media from previous stops.