It’s not everyday you see a four-metre tall portrait of yourself playing Don Quixote.
But that’s exactly what local stage actor Alan Clift got a chance to see, along with many other ECHO Players and Parksville Qualicum Beach residents on Saturday, March 25.
The ECHO Players held an unveiling of the finished 4.8-by-17 metre, three-part mural painted by David Goatley, which will adorn the side wall of the Village Theatre. A public unveiling is scheduled for July 1, but this earlier unveiling took place at French Creek Community School.
Clift called the mural “terrific,” a sentiment echoed by Paul Churchill, another ECHO player immortalized in the mural.
Churchill played Sir Joseph Porter in a performance of H.M.S. Pinafore.
“It looks a pretty good likeness,” he said of his portrait, adding he was quite flattered to be one of the ones depicted in the mural.
Goatley said he was pleased with how the project turned out.
“I think it says the right things about the company,” he said, which is to illustrate the wide variety of performances the ECHO Players put on. The mural includes elements of comedy, tragedy, farce and musical theatre, and also includes panels on either side of the central mural, dedicated to those working behind the scenes.
Ovearall, the idea behind the imagery is “to be entertaining,” Goatley said. “And to suggest that behind that wall is a world of … entertainment.”
Fundraising continues to install the mural on the Village Theatre. For more information on that, go to echoplayers.ca/af.php .