Turtle Crossings – an original musical at Granite Ridge

Jeff Green | Nov 16, 2016

Craig Godfrey never thought he was going to write a musical, but a series of events conspired to make Turtle Crossings his first effort as a playwright and songwriter.

“The Little Theatre used the cafeteria of Sharbot Lake High School for all of their productions, and when it closed and the new school was coming in, I approached the executive with the idea of writing a local musical as a collective for the first production in the theatre at Granite Ridge. My first idea was to do a play about a High School band that reunites for the opening of a new school, just as the music teacher is about to retire,” he said, when interviewed this week as the first ever production of Turtle Crossings is just a week away. Opening night is Thursday, November 24.

It turned out that the Little Theatre Executive was headed in another direction, and put on Music Man as the first musical in the new space. In the meantime Godfrey looked at the notes he had prepared for Turtle Crossings and realised he only had a shell to work from.

“I decided that what I should do is write a short story in order to flesh out the characters and add some depth.”

The story that he wrote was about a girl who spent her summers at a cottage in the 1970s, right through her teenage years. There is a major rift between her and the local community as well as her parents and she leaves, only to return 20 years later. In the musical adaptation of the short story, all of this is revealed through a series of flashbacks. The play opens in 1993, at an open mic night in a bar in a big city, just after the protagonist, Tessa Carter, a music teacher, has performed on stage. She tells her friends about a letter she has just received from her estranged father, offering to give her the family cottage. That, and the fact that the job of music teacher at the high school near the cottage is coming up, provides the plot mechanism around which the rest of the play unfolds.

Godfrey ended up writing songs for the play as well, and has been working with director Brian Robertson on changes to the music and script as the production has been developing. Although the play is Godfrey's creation, he has taken a back seat to Robertson during the production. As actors and musicians have come on board to work on the play, he feels the spirit of collaboration, that he originally wanted to see in the writing, has taken hold in rehearsals.

“Turtle Crossings”,will be an exciting and widely anticipated presentation for the entire community.