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In the summer of 1987 Salutes To Victory was presented at the Yarmouth Arts Regional Centre in Yarmouth Nova Scotia. The Program Master Soldiers on Parade (Program (Characters an Scenes) Soldiers On Parade - Photos Sailors at Sea - Program (Characters an Scenes) Sailors at Sea: Photos Sailors at Sea: Video Meet the Airmen - Program (Characters an Scenes) Meet the Airmen - Photos Salutes To Victory Rehearsals and Backstage - Photos
Salutes To Victory Summer Season 1987
Wartime Heritage ASSOCIATION
The Legacy of Salutes To Victory During the summer months thirty years ago the stage at the Yarmouth Arts Regional Centre echoed with the stories, songs, and music of the war years. The Summer Season of 1987 marked the introduction of a new enterprise for Th’YARC, a summer season with a series of three productions that told the story of wartime Yarmouth during WWII. A corps of young people from the region were employed. Augmented by volunteers the cast and crew began training and rehearsals in January. Most were high school students whose grandparents were part of the wartime generation. Brenda Tate and George Egan wrote the three scripts. The characters were drawn from life; names were changed, but the stories were real. Some of the people whose personal recollections supplied material for the scripts would be in the audience. Others who did not survive the tragedy of war came to the stage through research and remembrance of their friends. While it was hoped that the season would be the first of an ongoing summer theatre with a wartime theme keeping alive the rich wartime heritage of Yarmouth Town and County, such was not to be. However, the success of the summer season wartime musicals led to the creation of 440 Productions and Wartime Heritage. Through the 440 Productions program between 1993-94 and 2002-2003 at the Yarmouth Memorial High School some fourteen stage and video wartime productions were produced. 440 Productions would become the stage presentations of the Wartime Heritage Association and four new stage shows, Time To Remember were produced and performed across Nova Scotia and in England. In 2004, 2005, and 2007 the cast of the Time To Remember shows, performed for the veteran Telegraphist Air Gunners who trained in Yarmouth during WWII and who were portrayed in “Meet the Airmen”. As the cast and crew toured Nova Scotia they met and performed for Veteran soldiers trained at Camp 60 in Yarmouth and portrayed in “Soldiers on Parade”. In July of this year, 2017, thirty years after they performed at Th’YARC, members of the cast and crew of the Summer Season ‘87 will gather for a reunion. As they remember their experience, they also will know that their initial efforts to remember the wartime history of Yarmouth Town and County carried on into the future.