NFLT honours its own

Jeff Green | Sep 27, 2017

North Frontenac Little Theatre (NFLT) President Brian Robertston once again presided over a ceremony to honour long time contributors to the Little Theatre at the former church in Tichborne that serves as a storage area/program space for the group.
This year the honorees included actor Norman Guntensperger, who performed in over a dozen shows in the 1990’s and into the new millenium. Guntensperger, who is also a musician, played in musicals, including Guys and Dolls and Oliver, dramatic productions such as Our Town, and comedies including The Foursome and others.

“I’m glad he moved to Kingston so I could have a chance at some roles,” said Robertson when handing out the award.
There were two recipients in the Youth category. Nic Alarcon-Belanger has been in a number of productions, but he is best remembered for playing Alladin a couple of years ago, a roel he took on only three weeks before the production when the actor who had originally been cast in the role had to back out.
“It was very stressful but exciting learning all those lines nad getting ready for the play,” he said in accepting the award as presented by Robertson.
Tim White, who played The Music Man a couple of years ago and is a choreographer for the NFLT, presented a second youth award, to Gillian Hoffman. His tribute, which including an exhortation to Gillian to continue on her artistic path after performing in numerous productions in a short few years, brought tears to Hoffman’s eyes, and White’s as well.

There were also two community awards this year. One went to Dianne Lake, who ran the cafeteria at Sharbot Lake High School for many years and over saw Dinner Theatre as well as intermssion snacks for dozens of productions. In he presentation, Pam Giroux talked about the dinners that Lake prepared with the help of students, and her ability to serve them and clean up before the play started, and then serve dessert during intermission.
Finally, the Frontenac News received an honour for helping promote Little Theatre Productions over many years, going back to the founding of the NFLT in 1981. In his remarks, award presenter Craig Godfrey took a light hearted approach, talking about how as a producer he learned how to get more coverage in the paper by engaging the community columnists, and about the reviews of his own performances over the years, rave reviews that this writer does not remember seeing in the newspaper.
The next scheduled Little Theatre Production, Sunshine Sketches of our Little Towns, is set for November 23-26.