Greg McLaren and Phil Ormrod are trying to find out as much as they can about northern Saskatchewan’s Uranium City for a forthcoming British theatre production on the global nuclear power industry.
The two are currently talking to people around the world who have worked directly in the day-to-day operations of the industry in order to gain a local perspective.
McLaren says the idea is to bring some of the stories of these people directly into the stage production as part of what is called “verbatim theatre.”
“What we’re hoping to do is get people who have worked or do work in nuclear facilities, one time or another, on the stage themselves making a sort of personal presentation about their lives,” he says.
Ormrod adds they are interested in Uranium City because it is one example of the boom-bust cycle of the industry but also to show how nuclear power has both local and global ramifications.
“We’re pretty convinced that a fair bit of the uranium from Uranium City probably ended up fueling the first generation of British nuclear power stations,” he says.
The completed production, Atomkraft, is set to debut sometime before the next British election in 2015.
At the height of local mining activity in the 1970’s, Uranium City had a population of close to 5,000 people.
However, once the mines began to close in 1982, the size of the town rapidly dwindled and today Uranium City has a population of only a little over 200 people.
People who worked in the mining industry at Uranium City can get in contact with Greg McLaren and Phil Ormrod via email at phil@switchbackproductions.org.