Coal Bowl Queen is an epic story of love, loss and identity and a love letter to New Waterford.

This funny, powerful and emotional drama simply must travel to Cape Breton; in the meantime go see it at Alderney Landing Theatre, Dartmouth, through Sept. 21 in a glorious co-production by Eastern Front Theatre, HEIST and Ship’s Company Theatre, where it premiered in August.

New Waterford-born writer Richie Wilcox, who is working on taking the play in Cape Breton, steeps their comedy in the social fabric of New Waterford and its annual, national, boys’ basketball tournament, the Coal Bowl Classic, which started in 1982.

Roz, a queer woman raised in Peterborough, Ont., comes to New Waterford to look for their birth mother, Wendy Chisholm. At the post office Roz learns they may be the daughter of the iconic Queenie, the Coal Bowl’s beauty queen in 1987.

Postal worker and potential lover Tanya directs Roz to many of the town’s colourful characters to learn about the tournament and to get to the bottom of two mysteries: Queenie’s disappearance and the identity of Roz’s father. As Roz searches for their own identity – a universal theme – they learn how key Coal Bowl is to New Waterford’s identity.

Set in a gym auditorium with a central score board and upper walls for flashing lights and screen shots of the cast, Coal Bowl Queen is a fast-paced, high-energy production that convincingly re-creates the excitement and joie de vivre of cheer leaders, crowds, basketball and first love.

Wilcox did over 50 interviews to learn everything about the tournament and intersperses character-driven, interactive scenes with individuals coming on stage alone to talk about what Coal Bowl means to them and how it changes their town, just for one week in January, into an enchanted place where everyone falls under the “Coal Bowl glaze.”

Coal Bowl Queen is surprisingly moving in the second act and tear-worthy as Mary Fay Coady as Queenie wraps her distinctive voice and powers of deep emotional expression around a familiar tragedy. Coady uses a restraint in her sorrow that is heart-breaking. She is also excellent earlier as the iconic, glowing, passionate, big-haired queen who believes in the tournament’s week-long magic to transform a gossipy, dull town into a supportive, buoyant community.

A tremendously talented ensemble cast brings all the slightly exaggerated colourful characters to life with high comic energy in beautifully written and paced comic scenes by Wilcox, also the play’s director.

There is the chatty Coal Bowl “archivist” Nancy wonderfully portrayed by Kathryn McCormack, also appearing as one of the outrageous randy trio of “Kitchen Bitches;” the acerbic, critical, uptight Corrine played by Karen Bassett with a lot of sensitivity and heart, and the crazed Coal Bowl-winning athlete Mark still dining out on his team’s victory too many years later, played by Zach Faye in a fantastic scene with Bassett as his over-the-top, sports-fan mother.

Koumbie anchors the play as Roz in a sensitive, convincing performance of someone seeking their identity and both fascinated and somewhat horrified by Coal Bowl and New Waterford itself. Whirling around in the present are Kathleen Dorian as the post office worker Tanya and, in the past, Benan Ali as Queenie’s sweet and innocent, basketball player boyfriend and, in multiple roles, Sharleen Kalayil and Gina Thornhill, both standouts in a scene criticizing the Coal Bowl princesses.

A lot of thought and playfulness has gone into the excellent design and period details for Coal Bowl Queen with costumes by Tamara Kucheran, wigs by Chris Cochrane, lighting by Leigh Ann Vardy, set by Jean-Pierre Cloutier and sound and projections designed by Aaron Collier with a fun use of the familiar, now-ancient overhead projector. It all works together to create the excitement of a basketball game and a sense of heightened vitality.

There are hot dogs and popcorn sold at intermission, original Coal Bowl programs to look at and an autograph board. The play’s program itself mimics the Coal Bowl program.

Wilcox puts a lot thematically into this play, casting back to the late 1980s while recognizing the time period’s shortcomings in terms of gay sexuality, issues around the notion of beauty pageants themselves and highly gendered roles. Wilcox lets the characters talk about this without condemning a time or a community.

At slightly over two and a half hours including intermission the play runs long; a couple of the telling scenes by individuals could be cut, though the actors’ delivery make them all of interest.

Coal Bowl Queen is a wonderful addition to Cape Breton literature celebrating a community, a culture and strong, comical people whose waters run deep. It is on tonight and Saturday, 7:30 p.m., with a matinee Saturday at 1 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets start at $25 before HST (COAL BOWL QUEEN | Eastern Front Theatre)

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