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Imogene Schick (Submitted photo/Theatre Saskatchewan)
Melfort Amateur Dramatics

Melfort woman wins Theatre Saskatchewan’s Volunteer of the Year

Nov 19, 2022 | 10:00 AM

A local woman recently won a provincial award through her work with an amateur theatre group.

Imogene Schick from Melfort, won Theatre Saskatchewan’s Volunteer of the Year award, as a member of the Melfort Amateur Dramatics (MAD) club.

Odyssey Productions out of Prince Albert were the ones who nominated Schick for the award, after partnering with her and Theatre Saskatchewan Inc (TSI), back in April, for a theatre fest festival.

Schick told northeastNOW she was shocked when she originally found out about winning, and now has no excuse to not do her absolute best every day.

“I was flattered to get this award. It’s very unexpected but flattering that they put my name forward for that… I can’t slack off now, I gotta keep the volunteerism hat held high and keep up the good work and encouragement to other people and clubs.”

She was one of the founding members that created MAD, way back in January of 1975.

Schick held the position of Secretary-Treasurer on the original executive board formed and held that position for a number of early years.

Since then, she took a sabbatical from the group before returning once again and now holds the position of just treasurer, as well as being a TSI representative.

Schick added it’s important for smaller community theatres to thrive and succeed, as they provide extraordinary opportunities.

“Somebody has a story to tell, and they want to share it with the world. Even at our local amateur level, we do our best to try to tell the story as the playwright intended. We can only trust our own instincts that we have achieved that goal, that we have told the story that the playwright wants to tell, and have done our best to do that,” she said.

“Each of these smaller towns that are able to get a group of people together, a community of people together to put on a production, sometimes the main idea is a fundraiser.”

Because she believes amateur theatre provides a platform to develop confidence in such real-world endeavours as public speaking, employment and an outlet for a person’s creativity, she has remained a member of MAD for over 40 years.

That number is also going to continue to go up as plans to stay a MAD member to contribute to the community effort to keep “live theatre alive in rural Saskatchewan.”

Ben.Tompkins@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter @BenTompkins_8