Gold and Fiddle Fever is a unique show telling the Cariboo Gold Rush story with fiddle music, step dancing and singing, all delivered with narration by two speakers.
The Cariboo Chilcotin Youth Fiddlers will be dressed in period costume and there will be some props on stage to set the mood for the inaugural show this Saturday evening at the Gibraltar Room.
The show starts in the 1860s at the beginning of the Cariboo Gold Rush and ends with the burning down and rebuilding of Barkerville, says Canadian fiddle expert Gordon Stobbe, who is in the lakecity this week to help fiddle instructor Ingrid Johnston with the final rehearsals on this year- long project.
Developing the show involved three major workshops with Stobbe, a day-long workshop with Canadian fiddler Kelli Trottier, and numerous practice sessions with Johnston and the 45-member club.
Johnston researched and wrote the script and Stobbe worked with Johnston to choose and arrange the songs.
Stobbe says there are about 60 songs in the show that were written in the Gold Rush era and many of them, such as Golden Slippers, Listen to the Mocking Birds, and Amazing Grace are still popular today.
Both Stobbe and Johnston say they couldn’t put on a show of this magnitude with out a lot of help from the fiddle club parents.
Gold and Fiddle Fever is on stage Saturday, May 30, at 7 p.m. in the Gibraltar Room. Tickets are available at The Open Book and Cariboo GM at $10 for adults; $5 for children under age 12; and free for children under age five.