SURREY 鈥� The show will go on, despite theatre costumes, props and sets getting dumped from a stolen trailer.
The stuff belongs to Royal Canadian Theatre Company, which is busy preparing , among other local theatres, in December.
Overnight on Wednesday (Nov. 15), a trailer full of theatre-related things was stolen from the driveway of the Brookswood-area home of Ellie King, the company鈥檚 artistic director.
On Thursday, the items were found strewn on the roadside in rural South Surrey, near 180th Street and 26th Avenue.
鈥淎ll this stuff, lying in the mud,鈥� a frustrated King told the Now-Leader. 鈥淚 know some of it is ruined, like one of the risers we鈥檇 planned to use in the panto, it鈥檚 smashed. All the stuff is filthy so we have to clean it all up.
鈥淚t鈥檚 going to take a little while to go through it all and find out what鈥檚 ruined and what鈥檚 OK.鈥�
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All the gear was from a show the company had just finished staging at several theatres as part of a tour around Metro Vancouver. Last Saturday, it was all loaded into a recently purchased by the theatre company, as a temporary storage facility.
鈥淲e loaded out Saturday after the last show of the run, and we were going to load it into the studio (in Whalley) today,鈥� King said Friday morning.
鈥淭here was a lock on the hitch. Somebody really wanted that trailer, which is still missing.鈥�
鈥� READ MORE: , from Nov. 15.
The contents was insured, King said, 鈥渂ut it鈥檚 a $1,000 deductible. I mean, c鈥檓on, for a charity.鈥�
As of Monday morning, the trailer was still missing, King said, and has helped cover the insurance deductible.
鈥淚鈥檝e been blown away by the support people have shown,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 been just tremendous.鈥�
On Thursday morning, King wasn鈥檛 aware the trailer had been stolen until she received a call from a woman who lives in the South Surrey area where the goods were found.
鈥淎pparently stuff gets dumped there all the time,鈥� King said. 鈥淭his woman called me and was not happy, thinking we鈥檇 dumped all this stuff there. So she鈥檚 telling me this and I look outside and yeah, the trailer鈥檚 gone.鈥� She found our phone number on brochures we had in (the trailer). But if it hadn鈥檛 been for her, we would never have recovered this stuff. The city would have come and cleaned it all up and taken it to the garbage dump.鈥�
Royal Canadian Theatre Company will stage Sinbad, The Pirates and the Dinosaur at Surrey Arts Centre from Dec. 14 to 26.
tom.zillich@surreynowleader.com
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