“Mirth and madness will ring in halls throughout Saskatchewan this summer when a troupe of eight young University of Saskatchewan students tour the province in professional stock company style,” said the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix on May 22, 1948.

The University Stage Society travelled across the country, visiting sixty-six towns and villages and providing “cultural education for people in smaller communities.” For fifty cents, audiences were greeted with a repertoire that included A Doctor In Spite of Himself, Pyramus and Thisbe, and an excerpt from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Five members of the society are shown in Eastend, Saskatchewan on May 29, 1948: Peter Jaenicke, Murray Edwards, Frank Bueckert, Natalie Harrington, and Betty Walker. Also present was producer/director/drama teacher professor Emrys Maldwyn Jones, sitting at the ready in the Ford station wagon. (The other actors were Molly Tubman, High Edmonds, and Frances Hyland.) The vehicle served as their tour bus, and with a trailer attached they transported clothing, costumes, props, free-standing sets, and portable lighting equipment.

Murray D. Edwards submitted this photo. He was a member and lead actor of the University Stage Society at the University of Saskatchewan and now resides in Sidney, B.C.

— Text by Amanda Hope.