Take a Bow Theatre Society and Sleeping Giants are asking Cochranites to cast their vote to bring their idea of a Children’s Theatre Festival to Cochrane.
Board member at large for Take a Bow Theatre Society, Anita McDonald, explained the idea stemmed from a grant opportunity that comes from Field Law.
“It’s called the Field Law Community Fund,” McDonald said. “This was brought to our another one of the Take a Bow members, and [we] said, ‘hey, would anyone be interested in applying for this to see if we could bring something theatre-related to the community to Cochrane?’”
“So, I looked into it, and I saw that it’s very wide-open as to what we can apply for.”
McDonald partnered with a member of Sleeping Giants where they ultimately decided to try and bring their concept of the Children’s Theatre Festival to the community, if they successfully secure the grant.
“We’re hoping to do an outside venue and just make a really fun day of it, and bring attention to the theatre community here in Cochrane,” she said. “So, we thought we would throw our name in the hat, and we got selected as one of the finalists.
“Now we are trying to promote this to the community because the whole application process isn’t reliant on the vote, but in [the grant] they state that more community support we can show, that will bump us up as to if we get chosen or not.”
Cochranites can help support bringing this new event to the community by visiting www.fieldlawcommunityfund.com, in the vote section under the Alberta tab. McDonald adds that it is listed as the Children’s Theatre Festival, and also includes a description on what how the plan to use the money to bring the event to Cochrane.
“If people love the idea, they just hit the vote button right on that screen,” she said. “The more people that do that, hopefully we can follow through with this.”
Regardless if they secure the grant or not, another way that locals can support the Children’s Theatre is by showing their support through contacting McDonald.
“If this is something that the community really wants to get behind, we are passionate about it, and we’d love to see it happen,” McDonald said. “If people want it, they can contact us through our different web pages and tell us that they want this to come, no matter what. We will do our best to make sure it happens in the spring.”
As Cochrane grows, McDonald said that a majority of the local theatre community usually ventures into Calgary.
“This would be that first stepping stone towards bringing not only professional leaders out to Cochrane and continuing that if we get a lot of momentum behind it, but also getting kids,” she said. “Kids don’t always get the chance to experience that and relate to it, and if we can get more kids involved in theatre or just enjoy theatre, I think it just builds community.”
McDonald said she hopes that residents take the time to cast their vote before the deadline on Nov. 20. She adds that anyone who is looking to get involved with the theatre community in Cochrane can reach out to find how.
“We’re always looking for volunteers who are looking to have fun,” McDonald said.
