Our History
The group was founded by Barbara McCann, now a retired teacher and consultant. Barbara is a highly-respected andwell-known musical presence in the area and currently the Music Director of the King Edward Choir in Barrie. Barbara was, from 1975-1998, the music consultant for the Simcoe County Board of Education, and started the Teachers’ Music Theatre Workshop as a course to help teachers present musicals with in the county’s elementary schools with students involved in each production. At that time, she was also the director (and founder) of the Barrie Boys’ Choir. The logical choice for the first production was “Oliver!”.
Other shows followed every two years until 1999 when the group decided to do one show every year. The evolution and transformation of the group continued moving from a teacher based organization to one which welcomed all who answered the annual call for auditions.
Over those twenty plus years the Teacher’s Music Theatre Workshop developed a large audience of loyal followers, and most of the February shows were sold out. Since the original productions were offered as a course, many people contributed to the significant amount of work involved in each one.
In 2000, the biggest change in the groups’ history occurred with the renaming of it to the Kempenfelt Community Players (KCP). This name change better reflected who it represented in the growing Barrie and surrounding area. In addition to the name change a formal Board of Directors was formed and the group became a legal entity.
Other changes began to occur to keep up with the growing demand for amateur theatre in the area. A full season was developed and continues today varying from 2-3 shows per season. The KCP has seen a tremendous response to its productions and with each season come new and exciting opportunities and improving the quality on each production remains a focus of the organization.
In 2007 the KCP celebrated it 30th Anniversary and positioned itself as Barrie’s premier community theatre organization providing high quality entertaining productions. As the Barrie and surrounding area continues to grow so does the Kempenfelt Community Players.
Check out our Show Archives to see a listing of the productions we’ve put on.