I remember reading the Chronicles of Narnia as a child and loving the books but The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in particular. There is something about that story, contained on its own outside of the rest of the series that resonated and stayed with me. The idea of a commonplace wardrobe being a portal to a world that at first seems to be a dream but becomes all too real. The battle between dark and light, redemption and betrayal, and a world trapped in a blanket of winter. (I did live in Saskatchewan however so my dislike of the cold and snow was probably heavily influenced by the weather outside.) But it was a story of my childhood and as with other childhood things it was set on my shelf, a memory I could revisit when nostalgic.
Now, my daughters love stories. They love to hear stories we make up when we are in the dark of our tent curled up in our sleeping bags or cuddled all together at home with pillows piled all around. And books. Any book, short, long, with pictures or without. So my husband and I started when they were very young pulling out our favourite books from the shelf and reading aloud to them. I’d loved these stories as a child and wanted to share the feelings they inspired within me. Then we introduced them to the world of Narnia. There is something about seeing that world again through the eyes of a child. Magic is always the word that comes to mind. And wonder. And acceptance. That doesn’t mean there weren’t a lot of “Why?” and “How?” throughout but they never questioned that the magic was real or that miracles happen.
So you can imagine the excitement when they found out that I was Directing. First they wanted to know if they could attend rehearsals (No!) and if they could come see the show (Yes!). And then they took turns being Lucy, Edmond, the Witch and Aslan. They fought the darkness, were brought back to life and helped their mother believe again with unbounded enthusiasm that there is magic to be found anywhere one chooses to find it.
-Kerri Norris, Director
