John Moerschbacher is taking three roles in Louis B. Hobson’s Steven-The Steven Truscot Story, which will hit the stage February 27-March 9 at Pumphouse Theatre.
A Rosebud actor is going to be a part of an emotionally intense retelling of a dark chapter of Canadian justice.
John Moerschbacher has landed three different roles for the play “Steven-The Steven Truscott Story,” written by Calgary Sun theatre and film reviewer Louis .B. Hobson.
Truscott was sentenced to death when he was just 14 years old for the murder of 12-year-old Lynne Harper in 1959. While his sentence was commuted to life in prison, he was released in 1969. It was not until 2007 that he was acquitted.
“I am particularly interested in plays that deal with real events and real people, so this play caught my eye. I was aware of some of the events around Steven Truscott’s ordeal, but had never studied them closely,” Moerschbacher tells The Mail. “All that has changed since being cast in this play. I am a playwright as well as an actor, and am absolutely smitten with the emotional intensity of all the characters involved. I truly believe that not one of us who are cast in this play will be the same afterward. The script is the work of Louis B. Hobson, and his passion for this story is very contagious.”
Moerschbacher came to acting relatively later in life. In 2011 at the age of 60, he was part of the cast of the Canadian Badlands Passion Play. Coincidentally, this was a performance that Hobson critiqued. He attended to the Rosebud School of the Arts and received his Certificate in Theatre Foundations. He has since been in performances at Rocky Mountain College, Urban Stories Theatre, and Fire Exit Theatre and at the Edmonton Fringe Festival.
In Steven-The Steven Truscott Story, he will be playing Constable Donald Hobbs, one of the interviewing officers, Dr. David Hall Brooks, a doctor who assisted in the autopsy of Harper and Magistrate Dudley Holmes.
“Double and triple casting is not unusual in plays that have a large number of characters and many different scenes with a large amount of narration,” he explains.
Steven-The Steven Truscott Story is slated to run at Pumphouse Theatres in Calgary from February 27 to March 9.
