Community theatre is, by definition, cast with local performers.
Audiences come to see professional productions tackled by their family, friends and neighbours.
Prince George has a special relationship with the performing arts, however, which has complicated a phrase like 'community theatre.' A number of the cast members in Legally Blonde: The Musical have gone off to post-secondary studies in the various disciplines of the performing arts and come back to ply their enhanced skills for their hometown.
Some, like Catherine McCarthy and Shelby Meaney, have returned on a permanent basis.
Others are only back for the summer with their gaze affixed on the major centres of live entertainment. Who knows when we might see Maggie Trepanier, Padraig Hogan, or Madison Hill in performance here again? Hill even recruited one of her classmates at the Sheridan Institute in Ontario (also McCarthy's alma mater), Callum Challis, to come join in the peroxide fun.
"I was here in February to see Cabaret and that was good, I was very impressed by the level of talent and the direction, so I had a lot of faith that Legally Blonde would be done really well," said Challis, a vocal specialist.
"It is so awesome to come home for the summer, you get to see your family and your friends, and also get to have a great part in an amazing musical theatre show," said Hill, who leads with her dance skills but is quickly gaining ground in the singing and acting disciplines.
"One of the reasons Callum came here was that opportunity to be in a high-quality show instead of taking a regular job like students usually have to do."
Trepanier recently graduated from Toronto's Randolph Academy for the Performing Arts (also Meaney's alma mater) and then got almost immediately accepted for a Master's of Musical Theatre program at the University of Surrey-Guildford, less than an hour straight down Highway A3 to London's famed West End theatre district.
"This is probably my last chance to perform in Prince George for the foreseeable future," she said.
It's nice to come back after learning what I've learned and put it to work in Prince George.
Judy gave me that opportunity, which is also suddenly making me face the word 'professional' which I never considered myself right up to this point, you're just kind of doing life and not applying terms to it, but I guess I am."
She has been an instructor at Russell's Enchainement Dance Centre in prior years, so she knows she has young eyes on her as she performs in Legally Blonde.
Those aspiring performers will inevitably be considering Trepanier and these other higher-level performers to be guiding lights.
"What I do know I can do is compare," said Trepanier.
"I don't know if Prince George realizes it or not, but the quality is really high, here. I've been around, I've seen big-money shows and big-city shows, and obviously the budgets aren't the same as Toronto but the production quality is absolutely comparable on all sides - the tech, the backstage, the on-stage, the production side. Maddy noticed this too, that when you go to Toronto and talk about where you're from, you start by saying 'oh, I'm from a little place in B.C. called Prince George' and you almost always get a 'ohhh, I've been in a show with someone from Prince George.' Everyone in Toronto knows Prince George in the performance sense."
Hogan is in a different realm, but the professionalism is just as sterling. For four years he's been attaining his jazz studies degree from Vancouver Island University, where some of Canada's top musicians have attended in the past.
He said that his Prince George past put him on solid ground when he leapt into that out-of-town world.
"I was in The Producers and Les Miserables and A Christmas Carol early on, Judy Russell got me into those opportunities, and I was definitely shaped by that," he said.
"Not just in the theatre I was doing - every second semester we did a musical theatre show - but also in the musical sense. I'm pretty sure music will now always have something to do with my future."
For someone who went into post-secondary aiming at voice and instrumentation, he discovered an unexpected primary passion that also traces its roots back to P.G. shows.
"I definitely like the acting side best of all," he said. That, in turn, gave him an extra appreciation for Legally Blonde and the jerk character he gets to play. "I saw the movie back when it first came out, but I was only vaguely aware of the plot-line going into this."
He went to YouTube to research the show "and I was not prepared for how hard it would make me laugh. I had to hit pause all the time so I could finish laughing. It's only in the last few rehearsals we've been able to get through the scenes without cracking ourselves up. And the songwriting is very, very good. And if you get a chance, pay attention to the work Shelby has to do as Elle Woods (the main character). It's just amazing what Shelby does, she's so good it's ridiculous."
All four of these come-from-away performers agree that they'd likely never get to play such hearty roles if they'd stayed in their school-year locations. Part of the reason Prince George performers are climbing the national show-biz mountain is the capacity built by plays such as Legally Blonde, and it has reached a point that instead of everyone moving away to hit their peaks, sometimes you do get to go home again and make local magic. Sometimes, ohmygod, like, you just have to add a little bleach and a lot of pink.
Legally Blonde: The Musical is on now at the Prince George Playhouse. Get tickets at the Central Interior Tickets website, their ticket office on Opie Crescent, or at the Playhouse door while supplies last.
