EXTINCTION SONG

TRAILER

Trailer by Nicholas Porteous, Actor: Liam Parsons

DIRECTOR’S NOTES:

About an hour northeast of Winnipeg is a small town called Lockport, Manitoba. My family used to go on camping trips to Lake Winnipeg and for a while my Dad had a friend Donnie who used to live in the town near THE BRIDGE that contains the locks that Lockport is famous for. I think they’re famous for them. In Manitoba they are definitely famous for them. The locks and dam were completed in 1910 to facilitate trade between northern and southern Manitoba over the impassable Lister Rapids. Lockport is also famous for a white pelican sanctuary, Skinner’s hotdogs and trophy channel catfish fishing. Anyways, when I was seven we used to have to cross this BRIDGE on our way back to Winnipeg from our camping trips or visiting Donnie.  
This BRIDGE terrified me. 
To me, this was the biggest BRIDGE in all of Canada. I used to beg my parents that we take the other route (making the trip longer) or that we didn’t go visit my Dad’s friend Donnie or that we didn’t go camping. I had these terrible visions of our family plummeting over the BRIDGE in our home made Winnebago that my Dad had built out of an old Hudson’s Bay Cargo Truck. I think my parents relented once and took the longer route but I knew they weren’t happy about it. My sister didn’t seem so scared of the BRIDGE and I never did get that. But to me this was the scariest BRIDGE in all of Canada.  
In 1974 we got transferred to Nova Scotia and I didn’t get back to Lockport for twenty- five years. And I forgot about THE BRIDGE. 
Jump/Cut to 1999.  
In 1999 I was in Winnipeg working on a play at Manitoba Theatre for Young People. A friend of mine and I took a little road trip out to, you guessed it, Lockport for some of their excellent channel catfish fishing. We crossed a bridge; got out of the car and headed down to catch some catfish and it was then that I realized that this was of course THE BRIDGE.  It wasn’t much, I’d been on over passes that were bigger.  And as I stood there looking at the youknowwhat, it hit me that I had forgotten a lot of what was important to me when I was seven.
Things I loved and things I hated and the teachers I had and what school I went to and who was the best colourer and how I liked Adrian and what was my favorite song and how much I hated this bridge… 
And how much I loved Wolves… 
And where had he gone… 
So I started to write this play. For Me. And My Dad. 
Who Always got us to the other side

WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY          Ron Jenkins*      

JAMES         Ron Pederson* 
LIGHTING DESIGN Ken Heaton

SOUND DESIGNDave Clarke

ORIGINAL SET DESIGN Nayda McCarroll
HOUSE TECHNICIAN Mary-Jean Doyle

SOUND TECHNICIAN Tayves Fiddis
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER            Kevin Colford
*Appear courtesy of Canadian Actor’s Equity
SPECIAL THANKS: 
Peggy & Ross, Vern Thiessen, Todd Hiscock, Bradley Moss,  Hilary Scott, Courtney Simpson, and my partners in crime Cheryl Millikin, Dave Clarke, Narda McCaroll and Ron Pederson.  A Theatre Department Production.