Hope is on the way!

Here's a post from Paul Zacharias, the composer/Sound Designer for Jake and the Kid: Prairie Seasons and The Diary of Adam and Eve. He's a soulful human being - a big part of Rosebud's company and someone to be shared. The character in the photo is Jake (played by Nathan Schmidt), strumming one of Paul's tunes. You'll have to come to the show if you want to hear the tune.

"The last couple of months I've been fortunate to have written some music that is currently being set to Rosebud Theatre's production of W.O. Mitchell's Jake and The Kid: Prairie Seasons. Some time ago, I came out of a music rehearsal where I watched three of my friends: Nathan, Conrad and Glena singing my words in three part harmony. A gift to hear. A song filled with sorrow and leavened with hope. As with most things in life, the summer comes for a while and warms our bodies and our souls. It gives us strength and joy enough to make it through the winter. Surely, the winter will come:

Oh my love

The snow drifts line the roads

The Sun hides It's face

The stars seem a little less close

They're homeward bound on the way back to His hand

They're closer to Him

But farther from where I stand

At the heart of this beautiful story filled with laughter, love and loss is a truth: as we are forced to let go of one thing, we are thus enabled to reach out for the next blessing. There is pain in the interim but joy will eventually come back to us and perhaps come back all the more, in vivid colour and depth. I'm glad that not every season is summer, or winter for that matter. It allows us to appreciate the years so much more. To smell a first rain. To see the days get longer, or shorter. To see the first snowflake fall or to see the snow melting after a long and hard winter.

I'm so richly blessed to be part of a show that celebrates life lived right in the middle of that journey. A story that acknowledges the value of a life lived for a time in the valley as well as the mountaintop and their relationship to one another. This is a story that inspires us to take heart and be brave: hope is on it's way.

- Paul Zacharias, Composer/Sound Designer -