TOTAL SELL OUT: Christopher Hunt premieres ‘Ribstone’ at Calgary’s High Performance Rodeo

Christopher Hunt has spent most of his life on stage, but this time he’s stepping out with something entirely his own.

“Ribstone,” part of the 40th annual High Performance Rodeo (HPR), is a piece about land, legacy, and the questions that linger when traditions fade.

Days before opening at Lunchbox theatre, the show completely sold out — a testament to Hunt’s reputation. It’s not his first rodeo, either.

Ribstone had a preview last year at HPR, but this year the full production is ready for presentation.

“I’ve been an actor for 40 years, but this is the first time I’ve written anything,” Hunt says. “It’s about my family and their relationship to the land and the history of this part of the province. It’s vulnerable.”

The show started with a stone — an actual rock. But not just any stone, a ribstone, which has Indigenous carvings showing a backbone and ribs. Siksika Nation recently had two ribstones returned to Blackfoot Crossing near Strathmore after they had been at the Canadian Museum of History in Ottawa for over a century.

“That’s exciting — people are starting to learn a bit about them,” Hunt says.

There was a ribstone perched on a hill on Hunt’s grandfather’s farm, which has surrounding land that’s been in use for over 8,000 years, according to archaeologists.

“That’s a lot of family history we can’t come close to comparing to,” Hunt says.

His family found beads, arrowheads, and even tobacco around the stone for decades. His dad named a Calgary butcher shop Ribstone Meats, and his brother runs Ribstone Woodwork.

“It’s been pretty important to our family, but also, of course, to the Blackfoot people for 8,000 years at least,” he said.

However, what exactly the stones were used for remains a mystery.

“There’s not a lot that’s been shared with me,” he says.

As part of creating this production, Hunt was hoping to find answers. But without them, the play addresses another question that he can’t shake in a play full of them: What do we inherit? What do we forget? And what stories are ours to tell?

“It’s not a memoir,” he says. “It’s asking questions about the stories we inherit, the homes, the land we’re on. There’s some jokes, some songs, and some deeper searching underneath. I hope the audience comes away maybe a little unsettled, but also entertained and thinking about their own family history.”

Music runs through the piece and through Hunt’s memories.

He plays banjo, drawing on old-time Appalachian tunes, and his late friend Tim Williams, a musical consultant and “walking encyclopedia” of roots music, helped shape the sound. Williams died last November at the age of 77 of cancer.

“At one point, he just said, ‘I wrote a song for your show.’ He called it the Ribstone Waltz. He sent me a little recording so I could learn it on the banjo. It was just such a beautiful tune. It’s now the heart of the show.” Hunt pauses.

“I’m doing the play in Tim’s memory … I hope the song goes out into the world and becomes part of the old-time repertoire.”

Ribstone runs Jan. 21-25, 2026, at Lunchbox Theatre, presented in partnership with One Yellow Rabbit’s High Performance Rodeo.

The show has completely sold out, but a waiting list is being taken at https://www.lunchboxtheatre.com/.