The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

None of them seems to know or care what Lucy‘s up to, "The show begins with Lucy coming on stage and "We decided that we wanted to, in this day and so she conjures up her childhood imaginary friend addressing the audience," explains Sapp. "And then she of enormous productions â€" Phantom, Les Misâ€" Zara to fill the void. unfolds the story for us. We get snippets of the story and erables, Miss Saigon, and so on â€" do affordable "It‘s a typical dysfunctional family," explains the play‘s _ her perspective on it, and we also get fantasy sequences theatre," Evans says. "We both come from director Alan Sapp, "where dad and brother don‘t talk or (Continued on page 25) British backgrounds, and we‘ve both been * (Continued on page 27) 0o 0o 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0o 0o 0o 0o 0o 0o 0o 0o 0o 0o 0o o o o o 0o 0o 0o 0o 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 PAGE 20 â€" WATERLOO CHRONICLE, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1994 reporter Deborah Crandall joins George o@ Val for' a look at local entertainment. By Deborah Crandall That â€" frustration with parents and siblings even though we love them dearly â€" is the premise of Theatre & Comâ€" pany‘s holiday production which continues at the Water Street Theatre. But sometimes, now admit it, don‘t you wish these family members would just disappear? ‘Tis the season for getting together with family memâ€" with 96.7 CHYM FM‘s new morning show, feafi:ring 7@’&@ @pg George Michaels and Valerie Cole, Monday to Friday : 5:30 to 9 a.m. Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 8:22, Waterloo Chronicle listen much to Lucy, and Lucy and mom have some kind of connection, but you‘re not quite sure what it is. Everyâ€" body‘s just kind of hanging in there. _ "And we find this extremely timely for the holidays because this if often the time when families reunite, and you‘re so very aware of every little flaw in your own famâ€" ily. You‘re wondering why your family can‘t be more like family X and family X is wondering why they can‘t be more like family Y." Unlike the rest of us, who can only imagine, Lucy finds a way, with the help and ® iÂ¥el â€" encouragement of Zara, Kij â€" to make her family vanâ€" | â€" ish. At the same time, 4 W 4| â€" Zara has not shown up J â€" alone â€" she‘s brought [i | â€" with her Lucy‘s "dream" [ J â€" family. "The show begins with Lucy coming on stage and addressing the audience," explains Sapp. "And then she unfolds the story for us. We get snippets of the story and her perspective on it, and we also get fantasy sequences (Continued on page 25) Of course, the dream family is not as perfect as Lucy had imagined it would be, and she reveals to the audience what she‘s learned from her experience. "Alan Ayckbourn has helped up with that because Lucy states clearly what it is that she does learn at the end of the play," Sapp says. While it does explore the issues of growing up in an imperfect family, and while there is a seriâ€" ous lesson to be learned in Invisible Friends, the play is unquestionably a Evans recruited director Burton Lancaster, with whom he had worked on several occaâ€" sions at theatre companies in Toronto and at Magnus Theatre Company in Thunder Bay (which Lancaster founded). And the two set out to establish Union Theatre Waterloo in the Butâ€" ton Factory on Regina Street. From the early planning stages, the coâ€"artistic directors were intent on ofied}avafietyoflife theatre to suite a wide range of tastes. But their top priority was, and still is, to provide affordâ€" able life theatre to area residents. . By Deborah Crandall It‘s been 16 years since Maurice Evans left his position as University of Waterloo‘s drama directorâ€"inâ€"residence. And for as many years, he‘s dreamt of establishing a professional theâ€" atre company in Waterloo. ~ When the curtain rises on Union Theatre Waterloo‘s debut production next month, that dream will have finally come true. Evans spent nine years with the University of Waterloo‘s drama department before moving on and back to the world of professional theâ€" atre in 1978. Since then, he‘s spent three seaâ€" sons at Stratford Festival, has done numerous television shows (including The Judge, Friday the 13th and the Campbells), and has perâ€" formed with just about every community proâ€" fessional theatre company across Canada. "I got to the point in my career where | felt that | didn‘t want to go to Calgary anymore, or to Edmonton, or to Fredericton, or whatever," Evans says. "and so I decided that maybe this is the time to get a theatre started in Waterloo. The economy is on the increase â€" they keep telling us that the recession is over. And there seems to be a resurgence of interest in theatre in both cities â€" with talk of converting one of the Seagram buildings into a theatre and with Friends of St. Jerome‘s saving the theatre in St. Jerome‘s high school. There seems to be desire (for professional theatre), and 1 thought maybe this was the time that we should try to get a theatre going here." Union Theatre ready for opening night Now he‘s back living in Waterloo, he "doesn‘t want to go away again", and he‘s making his dream a reality. â€" l