Arts & Culture
Always a Bridesmaid director Don Briard is a Richmond resident.
Photo by Tracy-Lynn Chernaske
Richmondite Don Briard directs Always a Bridesmaid at Metro
By Hannah Scott, Local Journalism Initiative reporter
Published 1:20 PST, Fri January 10, 2020
Last Updated: 11:51 PST, Wed January 29, 2020
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After a successful pantomime season, Metro Theatre’s next production is Always a Bridesmaid, a play by Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope and Jamie Wooten.
Richmond resident Don Briard, also a long-serving member of Metro’s Board of Directors, directs.
Briard recommends Always a Bridesmaid to anyone looking for a laugh, highlighting the playwrights’ sense of humour as a strength.
“It will probably particularly resonate with any woman who’s ever been a bridesmaid,” says Briard.
The central plotline is that four women, lifelong friends, promise to be each other’s bridesmaids. Despite this promise, things don’t go as smoothly as they had hoped as teens.
“How the women deal with these things and support each other is a real tribute to the friendship they formed and how they maintained it in spite of their different outlooks on life,” says Briard.
Despite these differences, the characters in the show demonstrate their loyalty to each other. “It has things to say about the value of maintaining your friendships,” says Briard.
The scenes are a series of flashbacks connected by a central narrator figure, a young woman on her wedding day. The four women are her godmothers whose stories she recounts in a speech.
When asked what he’s enjoyed about the process of creating the show, Briard was clear: the cast has been above average.
“I don’t think that I have ever had a cast that were so unselfish,” says Briard. “They work so hard.”
The cast members connected quickly in a way Briard likens to the bonds between the characters in the show. “They make it an absolute pleasure to go to rehearsal,” adds Briard of his cast.
The positivity behind the scenes matches the play’s comedic, upbeat tone.
“Hopefully it’s a story that people will relate to and have a good laugh. If it makes them think about their friendships, so much the better,” says Briard. “Maybe someone will be motivated to pick up a phone and renew a connection.”
Always a Bridesmaid is on at Metro Theatre, just across the Arthur Laing Bridge, from Jan. 17 to Feb. 1. To buy tickets, call 604-266-7191 or visit https://tickets.metrotheatre.com/
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