A4

Greg Mulock

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The rewards in the artistic world come from the joy of creativity and the satisfaction of connecting with one's audience.

That's not to say rewards of the financial variety go unappreciated. Just ask former Bathurst area resident Carol-Irma (Jagoe) Mulherin, now living in Grand Falls Falls. she just won $10,000 in a script-writing contest organized by Our Dinner Theatre, a new company starting up in Fort McMurray, Alberta.

The winning play, to be staged this November, is called One Last Kiss and it will be Our Dinner Theatre's debut production. Dinner theatre fans back here in the Chaleur region will recall the murder mystery was staged by Irma and her husband, Scott – along with other members of their theatre company, Broadway Productions – at Danny's Inn and Conference Centre in Beresford in 2006.

A murder mystery of sorts, One Last Kiss is a three-act dinner theatre musical with music from the 1950s.

Carol, a 1995 graduate of Bathurst High School, said she stumbled upon the contest on-line.

"I was surfing the net for ideas for our newest dinner theatre I'm writing, and this came up on the screen. (www.ourdinnertheatre.com)," she said in an e-mail chat with me last week. "I was skeptical, but had more to win than lose, so entered a couple scripts. They loved them all. Scott gets the credit for making me do it."

In addition to the much appreciated $10,000 prize money ("This is the first script I've ever sold," said Carol), there's also "exposure as a writer, and more venues hearing about our scripts...Since winning this contest, we have had a couple other dinner theatre companies approach us about wanting to see and commission our scripts. . . so they could be playing in different venues throughout the Maritimes over the next couple of years."

Meanwhile, another of Carol's plays, Stuck in the Middle (2004), is also being commissioned by Our Dinner Theatre.

"They buy the rights to use my script and I get credit in the program and advertising as writer. I don't have to do anything but click 'send' to e-mail the script. The same as renting rights for any musical or play production."

In the meantime, Carol is busy getting ready to bring another of her scripts to life, Can't Buy Me Love. A comical tribute to the Beatles, it will be staged by Broadway Productions on Nov. 7 to 9 at Danny's Tickets will be on sale later his month via the hotel.