ESTEVAN - The Souris Valley Theatre wrapped a successful season for its main-stage show on Saturday and is getting ready for August and September concerts.
Starting early August, the theatre will open its concert season. They are inviting the community over for Brenda Lee Cottrell and her band's The Memorable Music of the Legendary Ladies concert on Aug. 3 at 7:30 p.m. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.
Timeless classic is the music Lee Cottrell delivers in every show. She is best known for performing an emotional musical tribute to memorable legendary ladies like country queens Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn; oldie stars Brenda Lee, Dusty Springfield, Lesley Gore and Petula Clark; and superstars like Celine Dion and Whitney Houston, just to name a few.
"That will be an awesome night," said theatre president Allison Holzer. "We're hoping to get a good crowd out for that."
The theatre negotiating for another musical act for August.
Then on Sept. 10, Teagan Littlechief from the White Bear First Nations, the latest recipient of the Indigenous Artist of the Year Award from the Saskatchewan Country Music Association, will entertain the crowd at the theatre to wrap up the 2022 season.
All concert tickets are $27.50 and are available at Henders Drugs, online at tickets.sourisvalleytheatre.ca or at the box office at the theatre.
They are also running their last Improv Camp Aug. 2-5 for kids ages 10 and up.
Earlier this summer, the theatre decided to go with one live production rather than the usual two. The Ladies Foursome was featured for three weeks from July 12-30 and attracted a lot of interest.
Holzer shared their experience with the play and this year's approach to production.
"The play itself was fun and great and hilarious. And it was just done so well. We've really enjoyed it," Holzer said. "We experimented with going three weeks this year. And we'll have to re-evaluate and see if that's what we do again next year, or possibly go back to doing the two plays, which is what we really would like to do. This was just an experiment after COVID, trying to get people back into the theatre. And hopefully, we can have two shows next year."
She noted that even though the play turned out well, the attendance probably was a bit down from previous experiences, part of it potentially due to the break, and some of it due to busy times in the community in general.
A couple of performances at the beginning of the season were cancelled due to technical issues in the building, which resulted in it getting too hot during the above 30 C spell Estevan experienced.
"Other than that, it's been great. We've been having fun down there," Holzer said.
