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By Madeleine Leclerc

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Speak Up

Aug. 15 was an exciting day for Scott and Carol-Irma Mulherin's Broadway Productions.

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"At 8 a.m. that morning, we received word that one of our dinner threatre scripts, "One Last Kiss", had won top honours in a script-writing competition," stated Carol-Irma Mulherin, co-founder of the Grand Falls theatre group.

"The contest was hosted by a soon-to-be dinner theatre company opening its doors in Fort McMurray, Alberta this November. The company is called "Our Dinner Theatre" and is operated by Lucinda Fougère, originally from Nova Scotia. Ironically, she spent her honeymoon in Grand Falls a few years ago!"

"I found out about the script contest quite an accident actually," stated Mulherin. "I was doing some research for our newest dinner theatre and the contest came up on the Internet. We used One Last Kiss in 2006 for our November dinner theatre run and it was very popular."

Broadway Productions faced stiff competition with entries sent in from all over the country.

"There were quite a few different entries and I was familiar with the author of one of the entries, a member of my first dinner theatre cast. We had both been in a show in Prince Edward Island about 10 years ago."

Five of Broadway Productions' scripts were up for consideration and all five were well received. Two of its scripts, One Last Kiss and Stuck In The Middle, made top three honours. Besides a $10,000 cash prize, One Last Kiss will be the very first show presented by the newly-formed Our Dinner Theatre which will be starting its three-month run in November and closing February 10, 2009.

"Stuck in the Middle was also a favorite of the company's and they are commissioning that show for September of 2009," she stated.

Mulherin qualified the $10,000 prize win as "pretty sweet".

"We were shocked when we found out that our script had won," she said. "We really didn't expect it so there was a little bit of screaming and all that. It's pretty exciting to get money for something that you've worked hard at and that you think is good but you never know for sure. So it validates it just a little bit more."

"One Last Kiss is a spoof on American Bandstand and the Ed Sullivan Show. When we did the show, it was Ted Sulliphan's Marathon Bandstand. It takes place live on semi-national TV in the Maritimes. The audience is also part of the live show. And, everything goes wrong! The audience gets to interact with the cast and there are a lot of twists and turns. The audience gets to play detective a little bit during the show. At the end, the audience decides the outcome so you definitely have a different show and ending every evening," Mulherin said.

"We will be flying out to Fort McMurray once our own dinner theatre run in Grand Falls is complete," stated Mulherin. "By the sounds of things, we will be given the royal treatment."

The Alberta-based company has already stated its interest in using other Broadway Productions scripts in the future.

"We are very excited about this possible expansion," Mulherin added.

Rehearsals are already under way for Broadway Productions' newest show, "Can't Buy Me Love", a Beatles show, scheduled to be presented in November.