Company History

In 1989, Ken Hildebrandt, a grade 11 student at MEI, comes up with an idea for a drama team at the Eben-Ezer Mennonite Church. The team is made up of many individuals from the Eben-Ezer Church.

Practices consisting of theatre sports and other improvisational exercises are held, and the informal team develops two, short presentations: one is performed at a New Year’s Eve service at the church, and the second is performed at a Wednesday night Bible Study.

There is no formal name for the team, and the participants attend practices on a casual basis and when time permits.

1991/1992 Season

The idea to start up a drama ministry is revisited. A new drama team is born, this time with a more formal mandate.

The team consists of members of the Eben-Ezer Youth and College and Career and performs for the first time under the name Gallery 7 Theatre Troupe. This was our official inaugural season.

We produced our first major production together as our one and only dinner theatre presentation. A tradition is started with this show and a spring play is presented every year since as part of the Gallery 7 season.

• Tangled in the Tinsel (Christmas sketch revue by Martha Bolton)
• High Time (Sketch revue, Dinner Theatre)

Why Gallery 7?

Gallery 7 Theatre originally had 7 members besides Ken Hildebrandt, but that's not why the group decided on the name Gallery 7. According to Ken:

I was in the berry field weeding, thinking about a name for our new drama team. I liked the sound of "Studio 58". So artsy. So I asked myself, "Where does one see art? A gallery." Ok, that could work. I then thought we needed to connect our name with our ministry mandate somehow. At the time, I understood '7" to be a holy number that represented God. Great number. I put 'Gallery" and "7" together and voila: Gallery 7. Cool name. I then took the idea to the team and they said "sure". And that's how our name came to be. In those early years, we called ourselves Gallery 7 Theatre Troupe. The name morphed into Gallery 7 Theatre Co. and then in 2005, when we officially incorporated as a non-profit and registered as a charity, we called ourselves Gallery 7 Theatre and Performing Arts Society.

1992/1993 Season

After the inaugural season, a makeshift theatre space is created at Eben-Ezer Church, complete with risers and a lighting system (actually, it was track lighting). No curtains are used to separate the stage space from the back-stage. The seating capacity was 84.

• The Game Called Christianity (Reader’s theatre presentation)
• Running to Bethlehem (Christmas sketches by Lawrence Enscoe)
• A View from the Pew (sketch revue by Martha Bolton)
• A Work in Progress (a sketch revue by Paul McCusker)

1993/1994 Season

This was the first season we produced two full-length plays in our season in the upstairs theatre at Eben-Ezer Church. We also continued our tradition of shorter, sketch-revue style shows that focused on religious themes. In the fall, we introduce a fall main-stage production, a tradition that is continued to this day. The play was The Phantom Pulpit Committee and was probably the most bizarre of our productions to date.

Our theatre space receives some more attention in that we have curtains made to separate back-stage and on-stage areas. The space feels a lot more like a theatre as a result. We produce one of our most popular plays to date, Pap’s Place, to mostly sold-out crowds. Other shows that spring included A Broken Heart, which we performed at a local youth detention centre.

Productions this season include:

• The Phantom Pulpit Committee (a unique play by Steve Proctor)
• A Funny Thing Happened to Me on My Way Through the Bible (sketch revue by Martha Bolton)
• A Broken Heart (a one-act play by Linda Medill)
• Pap’s Place (a play by Paul McCusker)