POND INLET - Good things come to those who wait, and a soon-to-be-international theatre project in Pond Inlet has been a long time coming.

The Snow Walker's Annabella Piugattuk, southern performers Michelle Fisk (lying down), Benjamin Clost and Kiviuq's Lamech Kadloo rehearse for a recent theatre project in Pond Inlet. - photo courtesy of Christopher Morris

Two Nunavummiut actors of considerable fame - The Snow Walker's Annabella Piugattuk and Kiviuq's Lamech Kadloo - were set to join two southern actors in an as-yet-unnamed-performance last Friday at the community hall.

The performance was meant to be a collaborative project, bringing together Northern and southern sensibilities into a meaningful whole.

'We started with absolutely nothing,' said organizer Christopher Morris. 'We've spent these few weeks creating and improvising scenes.'

What has emerged, he said, is a series of personal examinations of memory, family and belonging, as the actors (or their characters) look both inward and outward.

'It's a mixture of traditional ways of living with modern-day ideas and themes,' Piugattuk said of the piece.

Each performer started out with particular themes and topics they wanted to address, she said. Her focus was on youth issues: family conflict and peer pressure.

'(It's about) how to resolve these situations in a way that makes sense,' she said.

This focus extends to the play's side project, working with 15 Pond Inlet youths to create a second play about issues they face.

'It's one way for them to express their feeling and ideas about how they want to change the community for the better,' Piugattuk said.

'I'm proud of them. We all are.'

Morris said he hopes to take this collaborative project beyond Nunavut, bringing his actors to Iceland and the south of Canada.

Again, he said he wants to examine how actors interact, and what people from disparate cultures can create together. It's something he has been working on through Toronto theatre company Theatrefront for several years, participating in Bosnia in 2003 and South Africa in 2004.

In 2004, his journeys brought him to Pond Inlet for the first time, kick-starting three years of hard work and fundraising to bring the current project to bear.

'It took a lot. In theatre we have very little money and we don't make money doing this,' he said. 'It was hard kind of getting everything together.'

The difference, he said, has been made by a slew of local supporters and corporate sponsors.

'I feel there is kind of a quality here of generosity that I don't come across often,' he said.

After being introduced to acting in 2004's The Snow Walker, Piugattuk said she has learned about the hard work the discipline requires, as well as the rewards it can bring.

'I'm just hoping that this play will open up Inuit people's eyes,' the Iglulik actor said. 'Acting is a really important outlet to express yourself in ways that people are often not able to.'