The Tec-We-Gwill Women’s Institute is holding an open call on March 25 for its talent show on April 15 in Bradford West Gwillimbury.
The open call is for all south Simcoe residents who wish to showcase their talents at the Tec-We-Gwill Women’s Institute Hall in Newton Robinson (4380 10th Line).
“The reason why we do the open call is because we want all performers to know what the stage looks like before the show,” said Mark Burchell, the show’s organizer. “We also want to make sure the performance will be suitable for the audience and we want to get the timings down and make sure we have everything they need. At the last show there were a number of performers there for the rehearsal and a pair met right there and decided to do a song together, that was really cool to see.”
Andrea Nolan, President of the Tec-We-Gwill Women’s Institute, says it's a really great opportunity for people to share their amateur talent and skills.
“It’s a really friendly environment and there’s lots of hidden talent around," she said.
The show welcomes all kinds of talents and anyone who feels they have something to offer is encouraged to get involved.
“The broad range is a lot of fun,” said Nolan. “We’ve got all kinds of things from storytelling to singing and dancing to musical instruments. The fun of it is seeing things we weren’t expecting.”
After holding two talent shows in 2019, the concert in 2020 was cancelled due to the pandemic. This past November the Tec-We-Gwill Women’s Institute held its first talent show in over two years.
“It wasn’t hard to get back into it at all,” said Burchell. “There were a lot of performers that were looking forward to it and we were quite lucky with the last one because there were professional and semi-professional performers that wanted to get back out there and participate.”
The Tec-We-Gwill Women’s Institute began running the talent show after Nolan and Burchell realized there was a need in the Bradford community.
“We were over at a friend’s place and they have five kids that all take piano lessons,” said Burchell. “The older kids were very good and we asked if they’d be interested in doing a performance at the hall and we decided to do a talent show with them doing a couple of songs.”
With this being the fourth talent show since 2019, the Tec-We-Gwill Women’s Institute has found the experience enriching and plan to continue with it every year.
“There’s been huge participation,” said Nolan.
“We’ve just had such good involvement from local performers,” added Burchell. “We’ve had a wide range of talents and also ages; from some performers under 16 to others over 95. From the audience point of view, they’ve all been sellouts or close to sellouts with over 80 people in the audience.”
In terms of participation, many different members of the community come out to share their passions and talents with the audience, and some enjoy the experience so much that they return to the stage.
“We’ve had a number of performers who have performed at each show, but we’ve also had a number of new performers at every show,” explained Burchell. “There’s usually 20 to 25 different performers.”
With the talent show just over two months away and the open call next month, the Tec-We-Gwill Women’s Institute is hoping performers start reaching out.
“We really want to get the open call out because we need more performers,” said Burchell. “So far we’ve had a couple return performers and one totally new band.”
Those who want to participate in the open call can reach Burchell by phone at 705-458-8964 or by email at [email protected].
