Theatre folks to pay tribute to Fran Rude

By Lethbridge Herald on September 4, 2025.

Al Beeber
Lethbridge Herald

Sheila Matson knows Fran Rude would not want her friends and collaborators to pay tribute to her. but they’re doing it anyway.

“Fran would probably have killed us for doing this,” said Matson of the late Lethbridge musical theatre legend, who died in early 2024 at the age of 86.

To Fran With Love: A Tribute Concert will be staged Oct. 3-4 at 7:30 p.m. in the Yates Centre, the venue where Rude and collaborator Ken Rogers staged many productions.

The concerts are fundraisers for the establishment of the Fran Rude Scholarship Fund which will provide financial help to aspiring and young performers in music and speech arts

Tickets for the concerts – which are being produced by the Rotary Club of Lethbridge Sunrise – are $50 and are available at the Ticket Centre, www.visitlethbridgearena.net. All proceeds will go toward the scholarships with the Lethbridge Music and Speech Arts Festival.

Over the decades, Rude gave a multitude of people the opportunity to showcase their talents on stage and behind the scenes.

And in the fall of 2023, Rude was honoured by the Allied Arts Council with the Joan Waterfield Memorial Award for advancing and enhancing the arts in Lethbridge. That award was presented to Rude by her Rogers.

She also was a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth Platinum Jubilee medal in 2022 for her contributions to the arts.

Rude was known for her eye for talent, much of it which she discovered  while being involved with the annual speech and arts festival as a  volunteer. She also attended and supported virtually every theatrical event in Lethbridge. And she was well known for taking chances when casting roles in the dozens of productions she helmed,

From “Chorus Line” and “Les Miserables” to “Jesus Christ Superstar” and “The Secret Garden” – her final show which she did as a fundraiser for the Lethbridge Senior Citizens Organization – Rude brought to the local stage many beloved musicals.

Ever the director, Rude even organized her own celebration of life last year at the LSCO.

And now her many friends are organizing their own event in her honour. On stage will be 32 singers and actors while the orchestra, to be  conducted by Rogers, will feature 34 members.

Honouring Rude will be names of many who worked with her over the  years including McKade Hogg and keyboardist Richard Coombes who the  throngs attending her celebration of life were told were among her favourite people.

The other luminaries include many well-known names such as David  Mikuliak, Jordana Kohn, Morgan Day, Mark Campbell, Sheena Lawson, Jillian Bracken, Stephen Graham, Tony Zappone, Karen Hudson, the long  list which will rekindle many memories of Rude’s musical endeavours.

At her memorial, Matson said she along with Rogers and long-time stage manager Nancy Graham, began talking about a tribute concert.

Coombs joined the three in discussions, Matson said in a phone interview. Musician and music educator Don Robb, a member of the Sunrise Rotarians then connected with Rogers about that organization’s  involvement. Robb first worked with Rude in 1985 on “Chorus Line,” an endeavour that started a long-lasting collaboration which included shows such as “Guys and Dolls” and “Annie” along with three different productions of “JCS.”

The music festival, recalled Matson, “was her love. She found many young artists for her shows” there, she said.

“She really wanted to bring theatre to this city,” said Matson.

Rogers collated from all of the programs of her 40 shows names of all  the cast members – more than 500 – and work began paring down the list  to see who was still alive and then through Facebook and other means,  the scheduled performers were contacted.

“It’s quite an undertaking,” Matson said of the tribute.