Between Shifts Theatre may not be the biggest theatre company in the North Shore Zone of Theatre 小蓝视频, but it claims some of the hottest acting talent in the area.
Three members earned prestigious awards at the North Shore Zone Festival of Plays on May 9 after performing Take Another 5 - An Evening of One Act Plays, which ran locally at the Eagle Eye Theatre in early April.
Kathy Daniels was awarded Best Performance by an Actor, Liz Gruber won Best Performance by a Supporting Actor, and Daniel Watson received an honourable mention for Best Supporting Actor.
The Between Shifts Theatre members stood out among very talented actors from five other theatre companies. But none were as shocked as Gruber, who split her duties between acting and directing for Take Another 5.
She was so focused on directing that she never considered being recognized for her part as Mary in The Man With the Bowler Hat, she said. So after adjudicator Stephen Drover finished describing the Best Supporting Actor's wonderful traits, she wished she'd had a voice recorder running or the nerve to ask him to repeat the introduction.
"I didn't think he was talking about me so I tuned him out. So I really don't know everything he said because I sort of stopped listening," she said with a laugh.
The award is especially satisfying because Between Shifts Theatre does not have the level of funding and membership of other companies in the North Shore Zone, she said.
"Squamish is the epitome of community theatre where you have actors who are also making costumes, who are also building the set," she said.
"We're up against actors who do this for a living. They don't have jobs, they act all day long. That's why it's really, really exciting."
Daniels felt very confident after her performance as a 46-year-old victim of sleeping sickness who awakens from a coma after 29 years in A Kind of Alaska. The cast had recently worked with award-winning Canadian actor Nicola Cavendish and Daniels could feel the audience's positive energy in North Vancouver's Presentation House Theatre.
Certain aspects of the performance carried out differently, but for the better, she said.
"At the risk of sounding immodest, on Friday night Between Shifts Theatre really bumped it up a notch. When we took it down on Friday night we were really ready. I felt like I'd given one of my best performances," she said.
As for Watson, who at the age of 18 received an honourable mention for his role as a na茂ve Russian immigrant in Push Cart Peddlers, the success of the festival is leading him to consider a career in theatre.
"It's an encouragement to pursue theatre as my life's dream," he said.
