Passion Play

The canola drew our eyes as we drove south for the Drumheller Passion Play.

It was going to be a hot one but the skies were blue, the clouds were fluffy, and we had a new audiobook. (The Candid Life of Mina Dave)

The topography is so interesting when you enter the ‘badlands’ of Drumheller. One minute you’re driving past acres and acres of farmland and the next, you’re dipping down and around and around years of ancient hills marked by striations of weather and water marks.

We arrived in the “Drum” in time to park near the World’s Biggest Dinosaur for a quick picnic lunch and bathroom break. The big pool was full of tourists and poor Dino was covered with people clambering all over him for a photo op. One can climb all the way up through his body to take in the view through his teeth!

Soon it was time to head to the play. Our friend, Jeany gave us free tickets for the show and she and her son Travis were in the production as well as many of our other friends (who were also in Terry’s music rehearsals) so we wanted to go! It was probably the first time we’ve seen the Passion Play in over 10 years!

Because the badlands amphitheatre is smack in the middle of the dessert-like conditions and it was a boiling hot day, we both wore our coolest type clothing (me a white dress and Terry a ‘wicking’ golf top), sunglasses, hats, and lots of suntan lotion. Our best idea was to sit under our golf UV protection umbrella which instantly takes off several degrees of the heat. I started to take photos of the permanent sets and actors but just before the show the ‘powers that be’ asked for no photos and all umbrellas to be put away. Yikes!

Above you can see the set from right to left as you look at it .

We had great seats where I didn’t have to climb down the stairs but could also see the entire set and action. Many of the far away hills were used for scenes as well as an actual pool of water stage left and all the buildings too.

The orchestra was outstanding. They even had a harpist and by the end of the play the glorious music uplifted our hearts as tears poured down our cheeks. It was extremely moving.

Above left stand the 3 crosses and by the time Jesus and the two criminals are crucified …..there isn’t a dry eye. The Drumheller Amphitheatre has natural acoustics so none of the actors needed microphones. The sound carries so well that you could hear the nails being removed from the corpse of Jesus and if any of us in the audience shuffled our feet on the stones it would echo back to the actors. We had to be still.

After the show, the well organized staff used golf carts to get many of the older/mobility challenged folks back to their cars, bathrooms, or buses. There were cold snacks on offer at intermission as well as afterwards and lots of ‘merch’ for sale.

It was their last show of the season and I’m SO happy we made the trip out.

We drove back to our favourite Rosebud Country Inn for the night. B.J. is so wonderful to always accommodate us both if she can. We brought our own cooler of food so we were able to heat up my homemade Turkey Chilli and we didn’t do much that night except truly enjoy that air conditioning!

To Be Continued…..

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