Power outages are inconvenient in even the best circumstances, but last night when the power went out in Nelson, the cast and crew of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown turned a dark situation into something that the audience would never forget.
“It was opening night of the 23rd annual Capitol Theatre summer youth program and we were half way through the first act, I think it was 8:05 p.m. and the power went down,” said Neil Harrower, executive director of the Capitol Theatre.
He said that this is the second time in 10 years that the power has gone out during a sold out Capitol show.
“My hope was that the power would just shoot back on,” said Harrower.
The cast and crew were taunted by the hope that the lights would come back on when the power flicked back on for a moment before going dark again.
Harrower had left the theatre to pick up supplies for the closing night party when the power went out.
“I zoomed back to the theatre, and there is Allison Girvan, the musical director for our show, and she’s called into the audience to see if there are any members of Corozon,” he said.
Corozon is a successful touring local youth choir directed by Girvan.
“The next thing you know the cast and some of the members of the audience are singing songs. Allison in her infinite wisdom tried to entertain a sold out audience with what she could provide,” said Harrower.
The group sang four songs before he was forced to ask the audience, cast and crew to leave.
“We have 30 minutes of power on our emergency lights, and the hope is within those 30 minutes that the power will come back on. I had a stop watch and I knew we only had a fixed amount of time, and when we had about 10 minutes left, I had to make the announcement that it looked like the power wasn’t going to come back on, and that the audience would have to leave,” he said.
The Capitol Theatre is a non-profit organization and the funds raised by productions like You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, are an important part of the theatre’s income.
“It’s a fundraiser for the theatre, and is one of the ways that we make any money at all, because we don’t have a lot of product. Our product is tickets and art,’ said Harrower.
“In the end everyone got a show, and I think everyone would agree that it was a once in a lifetime kind of show, and it really was, it was just short.”
The audience of Thursday opening night production has been offered seats at the three remaining shows, a gift certificate to be used at another production at the Capitol, or they can leave the money spent on a ticket as a donation to the Theatre.
“I’ve never been prouder than I was last night, standing on the stage with the cast saying ‘we’ve done everything we can but now you have to go.’ It was as beautiful as it could be under the circumstances we were given,” said Harrower.
The power was out in Nelson for over an hour, but outside of the city, residents were making breakfast on the barbecue this morning.
Audrey Work, of Dutch Girl Peonies, who lives in South Slocan said the power was still out at 9 a.m. this morning.
“Fortis BC said that there were too many more serious problems, but I’m sure they’ll get to it this morning,” she said.
Ruth Sulentich, spokesperson for Fortis, said that as of 6 a.m. this morning there were only two homes still without power.
Nelson Hydro was unavailable for comment.