ELK POINT – The 2024 Elk Point Allied Arts Christmas Dinner Theatre production of ‘Not a Creature Was Stirring, Not Even a Moose’ set a new attendance record, with “Ticket sales exceeding 1,000,” according to director Don Conrad.
“The cast and crew of the Elk Point Christmas Dinner Theatre thank everyone for making it a historic event.”
Conrad should know, he has acted in and directed over 30 plays in the venue and its predecessor, the Elk Point Elementary School gym, and is passionate about having live theatre accessible in northeast Alberta.
This year, he directed a cast that includes many-time performers Shaun Sheplawy, starring as Herald Tribune editor J. J. Garnes, Velma Hudson as typesetter Delilah, Lawrence Pidluzny as janitor and handyman Barney and Barb Maile as photographer Sarah. More recent additions to the lineup are Ellen Reid as Buzzy, the flying crop duster, Kendall Snyder as Sergeant Slattery, Roger Smith as Mayor Fosdick, Sherry Milholland as Fiona Jeffers, head of the town’s Civic Association, and Amber Cook as Winona Pershing, the rival newspaper editor of the Herald Times.
Those two newspapers vie for news and advertising in a shrinking town in the 1970s, and Christmas is a great time to up the circulation. Maybe a front page story about the season would do the job, but J.J.’ efforts to track down the youthful author of a sad Christmas letter aren’t getting him anywhere, and anyway, he’d really rather sell papers with the latest foibles of Mayor Fosdick. Christmas, he thinks, is just another day, and not an exciting one at all.
With the Christmas issue wrapping up, Delilah and Sarah are determined to add some Christmas cheer to the office, even though the big box in the storeroom labelled ‘Christmas Ornaments’ only holds one small and insignificant stuffed moose. Well, that at least put rest to their earlier musings that, “It’s a shame that Christmas doesn’t have an animal.” Never mind the moose, Delilah said, she was just wishing she could get the new clutch her printer needed and Sarah was hoping to get some extra cash for Christmas shopping.
There doesn’t seem to be much Christmas joy at the town office either, because Mayor Fosdick warns him about exercising the freedom of the press to expose some details he’d much rather keep under cover.
Sigh… Back to the sad letter from a kid who has lost his Papa, and it’s hard to figure out “How do you make a kid believe in Christmas again? Hey, it’s the angle we’ve been looking for!”
But suddenly, not only did Delilah’s clutch arrive, but rival editor Winona came in the door with cash for Sarah’s photos she had used. Quite a coincidence, they agreed.
But J. J. still needed that kid’s name, and the only way would be to look for his Papa’s name in the obituaries… but the mayor had confiscated the newspaper’s archives for an investigation. Hey, Barney was headed over to the town office to do his janitor work, and with a few alterations to his appearance, J. J. could be his new assistant… Unless of course, the mayor found out… Then Winona’s hope that J.J. would be arrested could also come true!
With the office to themselves, Delilah, Sarah joined Winona to sing their own version of “On the first day of Christmas…” until crop duster Buzzy arrived with a Christmas tree, and on hearing the ladies’ stories about their lucky breaks, said she believed in wishing on a special animal… like the moose.
Then, J.J. was back, with the local policeman and mayor in hot pursuit, but by the time they came in the door, J.J. was putting on a Santa suit and Fiona had arrived with a bulging bag of toys from the Civic Association for Buzzy’s annual airborne toy drop in a nearby field. Distracted by the generous gesture, the sergeant tucked the moose in the bag… he certainly wasn’t going to arrest Santa, and J.J. was nowhere in sight, as far as he could tell. With the sound of the aircraft overhead, the women ushered the mayor and sergeant out the door.
The flight was a short one for J.J., who fell out of the plane while dumping out toys to the excited children, and when he finally recovered his wits, told the women, “That was amazing, all those kids helping me up… what do we have in the petty cash? Buy every toy you can find. Buzzy, we’re going up again!”
When he returned to the office, both the sergeant and the mayor were there, the sergeant declaring the situation “Put the spark of Christmas in my heart,” and Fiona corralling both the mayor and J.J. and telling them they deserved an award for their generosity to the kids of the community.
“The mayor and I have been doing this all along,” J.J. told her, “And the new wing on the town office is going to be a youth centre. Now the secret is out!” With all those people there to hear it, the mayor could do little but head out with the sergeant, wondering if there were ways to get out of that.
When everything settled down, Barney had a couple of surprises for J.J.
“You wrote that letter 30 years ago, after your Papa passed. And as for the moose, it was picked up by a kid whose only Christmas wish was for a moose!”
How did he know these things, J.J. asked?
“I’m an old elf.”
