Miss Helen (Judith Buchan) lives alone and has transformed her home into a work of art by creating a myriad of cement figures outside the house and decorating the inside with dozens of candles and mirrors. She has created her own “Mecca” of beauty and freedom. A young friend, Elsa (Alysa van Haastert), drives from Cape Town to make a surprise visit on the same day the local pastor, Marius Byleveld (Steve Waldschmidt), comes to Miss Helen’s house to help with her application for a bed at the local Old Folks’ Home.
Judith Buchan is the 2010 Harvey Artist in Residence at Rosebud. Judith plays Miss Helen in The Road to Mecca. Judith has been in this play previously as Elsa at Live Arts Theatre in Calgary. A few years earlier, as a company member of Pacific Theatre in Vancouver,
Judith played Sally in Talley’s Folly with Morris Ertman directing. So her return to Rosebud might be considered a bit of a “homecoming”.
A graduate of the University of Alberta, B.F.A. Acting Program, Judith has performed in many theatres across western Canada. For the past 12 years, she has lived in Lethbridge where one of her favourite roles was Countess Malcolm in Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music with the Lethbridge Symphony. She commutes regularly to Calgary to work in the film industry and has played more than 20 lead or principal roles in both film and television.
Most recently, you may have seen Judith on TV in Heartland and on the big screen in Passchendaele.
In 2007, Judith received a Movieguide nomination for Best Actress in TV for Lost Holiday.
