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Queen Street Dinner Theatre
The A.N.D. Company was founded in August 1997 by Grand Falls-Windsor residents, John Thompson and Rod French. It was first called the Grand Falls-Windsor Living Interpretation Project and then it was changed to Another Newfoundland Drama Company, or A.N.D. Company for short. The A.N.D. Company is an incorporated not-for-profit community service organization administered by a volunteer board of directors. Its first production "The Price of Paper", written by John Thompson, premiered August 4, 1998. In 1999 the A.N.D. Company began providing a Dinner Theatre experience. The A.N.D. Company Inc.'s Summer Theatre Program has become central Newfoundland's finest dinner theatre. It offers local people and tourists great lunchtime and dinner theatre shows. This year they changed the name The A.N.D. Company's Summer Theatre Festival Events to the Queen Street Dinner Theatre because all performances take place on Queen Street at the Royal Canadian Legion. Their mandate is to establish a theatrical tourism product in Grand Falls-Windsor while offering students of theatre and music a means of practising their craft and also to earn money to continue their education. Ms. Warr's nephew, Patrick Edison, was one of these students this year. He got a chance to demonstrate his vocal talents and earn money to help with his tuition at Memorial University School of Music in September. This was his first season with the company and he enjoyed it tremendously.
This year the company celebrated its tenth fun-filled season with three different performances. In the Goin' to the Chapel performance audiences were transported back to 1974 for the Grand Falls wedding of the decade as an uptown girl married downtown boy featuring music from 1968 to 1974. It was a big hit and they had sold-out performances. Ms. Warr arranged for three of my classmates, my sister, my cousin and I to go one evening before the Goin' to the Chapel performance began, to get pictures for my report. It was awesome. We met the very talented artistic producer, John Thompson, who is related to my mom. We got to see Shirley Morrow applying make -up on the performers. Mrs. Morrow also served as guest director for the company's talented young actors and actresses this season for the production of Departure Time. We couldn't believe that the character playing the role of Nan was really a man, Allan Morgan. After he was all done up he looked just like a woman. It was fun watching Christopher Thompson gliding. He played the part of Muffy's Guru, Moesha. We thought he was wearing roller blades or Heelys, but he wasn't. Also, we got to sit on the stage and watch the performers practise their songs for us. They were awesome! They even played the song "I'm a Believer" from the movie "Shrek" for us. I really liked how the tables were set, with the famous Purity syrup and candies on them. They can seat about 150 people and everybody says that the meal that Yvonne Lambert cooks is deiicious. What more could you ask for ---satisfying your appetite while enjoying great entertainment!
The lunchtime presentation was a hilarious and sometimes touching lament to the loss of the Newfoundland Rail Passenger Service in July of 1969 called Departure Time. Also playing this summer was Mudder's Kitchen Party featuring lots of Newfoundland music, comedy sketches and a SCREECH IN as well as special weekly guests. We never got to see these performances but we heard they were "some shockin' good." Mrs. Woodford's husband was a member of the band that performed at Mudder's Kitchen Party. Mrs. Woodford is a teacher at our school. Our mayor, Rex Barnes, said the Queen Street Dinner Theatre has become one of the Crown Jewels of the summer season not only in our town, but also for the entire central region. It is ideal for groups to attend and a lot of people who have family reunions usually include a dinner or lunchtime show in their schedule of events. For a complete schedule and show times you can visit their web site at www.andco.nf.ca.
Samantha Boone (2006-2007) |
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