Joyce moved to Hamilton from her native Halifax in 1955, found work as a music librarian and control room operator at CKOC, and rented a room from Alfred and Kathy Robertshaw. The Robertshaws' social life revolved around their involvement with the Players' Guild: Kathy did the acting and Alf did tickets and house management during a play's run, and whatever else needed doing during rehearsals.
It was only natural that Joyce would be persuaded to join the Guild. What, you don't act? No problem! If you can run a McCurdy desk for a radio station, you can run our pathetic sound effects board for the Guild. Here she is at a rehearsal, holding a sound effects record:
A few years later, a handsome young man arrives at 'OK from Ottawa to take the town by storm, and finds out about the Guild. He auditions, gets a part, and keeps running into the same girl he runs into at work. Well, you know, they eventually hit it off. Here they are at a Guild party:
And some time after that, a new name appears in the Players' Guild:
... but again, we're getting ahead of our story. For more details, see this comment on the previous post.
Getting Joyce onstage was not an easy task. She was incredibly shy, as was Bill. He came to life, when you put him onstage, or a microphone was put in front of him. Always the actor, he was not able to read a passage from Shakesphere without going into character.
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