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Medical melodrama kicking off Footlighters Theatre Society's 20th season in Creston

Dogsbreath Devereaux, The Dastardly Doctor, runs July 10-12, following in a Footlighters tradition of presenting comedy in the summer...
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Axel Marini (left) stars as the hero

After producing plays and musicals for 19 years, Footlighters Theatre Society is kicking off its 20th season with Dogsbreath Devereaux, The Dastardly Doctor, which runs July 10-12 at Prince Charles Theatre.

The play follows in a longstanding Footlighters tradition of presenting comedy in the summer, and this one, a melodrama, is sure to please audiences who see the interaction between stock characters, such as the hero and villain.

“There is music, drama, pathos,” said director Gail Kitt. “It’s a good family show because it’s got everything. Everybody will get a laugh out of it.”

Set in a clinic, Dr. Dogsbreath Devereaux (played by Rylan Lavallee) plots to wed and do away with wealthy widow Lotta Cash (Jennifer Adams) so he can inherit her fortune and her late husband’s clinic. He enlists the aid of nasty nurse Hilda Hatchet (Ann Deatherage) and promises to marry her once he disposes of Lotta. Problems arise when the insanely jealous Hilda catches Dogsbreath flirting with heroine Wendy March (T.J. van Hooft). Only the hero, Dr. Phil Good (Axel Marini), can save Wendy and Lotta from certain death.

The cast of Dogsbreath Devereaux also includes Zoe Marini, Caleb Wells, Aaron Willicome, Colin Hardwick, Susan Jorgensen, Frank Goodsir, Gill Wells, Gary Atha, Jasmine Lothien, Jordan Koop, Jesse Moreton and Jennifer Dewald.

July is a particularly busy month for Footlighters, with the cast and crew of Almost Golden, which was named best production at May’s Centre Stage, visiting Kamloops to represent Theatre BC’s Kootenay Zone in a July 9 performance.

“It’s rare that we have two productions going at the same time, especially ones with large casts,” said president and Almost Golden director Brian Lawrence. “But it just goes to show that theatre is alive and well in Creston.”

When those productions finish, the group will move on to the fall production, this one a locally written version of Cinderella that runs Dec. 4-6. This will be the eighth fairy tale that director Frank Goodsir has adapted, following the Footlighters productions of Aladdin (2011) and Jack and the Beanstalk (2007), and a series of five that ran in Creston in the early 1980s.

As with Aladdin and Jack, Cinderella will be produced in conjunction with Adam Robertson Elementary School, and will likely feature about two dozen children from ARES and other valley schools.

That will be followed by a musical, Walt Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, also produced with ARES, running April 16-18, 2015. It will require a large cast of adults and some children, and feature all of the songs from the 1991 animated feature, as well as those created for the 1994 Broadway musical.

“This is going to be an incredible season,” said Lawrence. “These are all great shows that the whole family can enjoy, as we look ahead to our next twenty years.”

Tickets to Dogsbreath Devereaux are $10 for adults, $8 for students/seniors and $5 for children under 12, available in advance at Black Bear Books and Kingfisher Used Books or at the door.

—FOOTLIGHTERS THEATRE SOCIETY