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The calendar, the play, the music and the memories

November 16, 2016   ·   0 Comments

It happened this way: 11 (middle aged) ladies in the town of Knapley, Yorkshire, England, all members of the Rylstone Women’s Institute, wanted to change their annual fund raising calendar to one that would actually give a good return. When Annie Clark’s husband died of leukemia in 1999, they decided to purchase and donate a settee to the family room in the cancer ward at the hospital.

Inspired, she and her pal, Chris Harper, proceeded to persuade nine other ladies to pose nude for the next calendar, with December being a group shot. The determination was, naturally, to choose a photographer who would handle the calendar as an art project. Lots of reactions (just imagine), leading, at last, to agreement. The calendar they produced not only sold out around the village but became a world wide sensation outselling calendars of various celebrities and starting something of a trend.

Zoom forward to here and now, where, under the guidance and direction of Bobbi Ferguson, a similar calendar for 2017 has been produced in support of MUSIC & MEMORIES.

Take a moment and look up a little film on YouTube called Henry’s Story: this about a man suffering from dementia who has not spoken for a long time and is deemed lost. A nurse places ear phones over his ears and begins to play the jazz that he used to love and used to play. Within a very short time, a miracle takes place: Henry starts to sing, remembering the words; he clicks his fingers and remembers, remembers everything. A little later, he is talking about the times he used to play and the songs and the places – it is truly a wonder.

Music, it seems, is the last memory to go for people with dementia and Alzheimer.   MUSIC & MEMORY raises money for purchasing equipment to give to patients in seniors’ homes. The necessary equipment includes an iPod and excellent earphones.

The benefit of bringing music into the lives of sufferers of dementia and Alzheimer, as well as other disabilities, is very well documented and beginning to be widely understood. Sometimes, so powerful is our connection to music, that a virtual reversal of the condition takes place!

So: Ms Ferguson determined to bring the whole thing together as a joint effort with Orangeville Music Theatre (OMT) and the Sweet Adelines to create the calendar and produce the play in January. She pulled in many more than 12 well known ladies to participate and they did so with humour and graciousness. To prove this is an equal opportunity project, she also invited Ed Crewson to participate.

The others, whose names you will recognize are  Lynda Buffet, Donna Henderson, Sherry Irwin, the month of April is “some of the OMT exec,” Pat Vipond, Kerstin Stinson, Gail Campbell, Kay MacGregor, October is 15 ladies of the Sweet Adelines, Lynda Clare and Betty McCabe.

By the bye, kudos for sure to the photographer of the 2017 Calendar, Rebecca Hall, who is also the Unit Leader Nurse on the dementia ward at Dufferin Oaks.

The play, Calendar Girls, from the film written by Tim Firth and Juliette Towhidi, tells this true story of the original calendar, as a comedy but with a big message, especially here where MUSIC & MEMORY is blazing trails for dealing with dementia and Alzheimer in a drug free and very healing way.

OMT is producing Calendar Girls at the Opera House in January. It tells the whole story of the original Calendar Girls in England, making a dare and an international splash, raising money for more than a settee in the end.

As it is essentially not a musical, the Sweet Adelines are singing as an additional pleasure to the whole production, in every performance. Kim Perry Blacklock is directing this production.

Bobbi Ferguson told us in a telephone interview this week that they are keeping the play in Britain but are not attempting to emulate the British accent. As it happens, she was brought in, late in the day, to play a role when another person was not able to continue.

“It was meant to be,” she said,  laughing. “The irony is that the part I’m playing is the person who is so set against the idea when, here, I was actually the one who instigated it and saw it through.”

To buy the calendar, here are the locations where it is for sale: From the Kitchen to the

Table, Dufferin County Museum and Archives, Scented Drawer, The Chocolate Shop, More than Just Baskets, TriTone Music Shop, Bartlett Gallery (Alton Mill), Broadway Farm Market in Caledon, Enchanting Esthetics; in Shelburne: Crewson Insurance,  Royal LePage, Dufferin Oaks, Jade’s Junkyard Jems. Online at bobbi@orangevillemusictheatre.com

To see the play, Calendar Girls, it is on at the Opera House, opening Friday, January 13 (8:00 pm), Saturday, January 14 (7:00 pm), Sunday, the 15^th (2:00pm); then, the following weekend, January 20, 21, and 22 at the same times. For tickets, call the theatre Box Office on 519-942-3423 or go online at www.orangevillemusictheatre.com

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