The Emerald Pig Theatrical Society heads to Mainstage for the second year in a row after collecting a stack of accolades at the Fraser Valley Zone Festival on the weekend.
Simon Challenger took home an award for outstanding director while John Stuart won for outstanding actor in Emerald Pig’s production of Trying, by Joanna McClelland Glass.
Emily Doreen Wilson won outstanding supporting actress for her role in the same production.
Directed by Challenger, Trying is a play about, well, trying. Trying to hold on to the past, trying to move forward into the future, trying to help, trying to help oneself, trying to change, trying to stay the same.
It is based on the real experiences of the playwright working for Judge Biddle in 1967. It is a heart-warming story of a “trying” relationship that evolves into understanding, mutual respect and friendship.
A brilliant legal mind, Judge Biddle was appointed by Harry Truman to the Nuremberg Tribunal in 1946 and went on to be attorney general under Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Years later, he finds himself functioning “somewhere between lucidity and senility” with the weight of what he’ll leave behind as a legacy bearing down on him.
Biddle just can’t seem to find the right person to assist him in organizing the papers and experiences of a brilliant career. Many have tried, but none have succeeded. Just as he decides that there’s no one who can meet his expectations, Sarah Schorr, a 25-year-old, plain-spoken girl from Saskatchewan, arrives at his office.
Doug Huggins got an honourable mention for set design in Trying while the talented Charlene Rowley got a nod for her costumes.
Trying producer Sharon Malone also earned an honourable mention.
Trying will be Emerald Pig’s submission at Theatre B.C.’s Mainstage provincial drama festival, which takes place in Kamloops in July.