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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2015-02-05, Page 19THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2015. PAGE 19. Garratt details Festival’s slate of new directors Walking for memories On Saturday, a number of Huron County communities hosted the Walk for Memories, an annual fundraiser for the Alzheimer Society of Huron. This was the 20th and final walk. Here, a family took to the indoor track at the Central Huron Community Complex in Clinton to help raise money for a worthy cause. Cameron Storey, front left, and Bailey Smith, front right, lead the way for their grandmother Nancy Greidanus, back left, and Kathy Greidanus, back right, holding Owen Smith. (Vicky Bremner photo) For this year’s Blyth Festival season, Artistic Director Gil Garratt has assembled a team of directors completely new to the Festival, which Garratt says is a good thing. Announced earlier this month in the Festival’s publication Curtain Call, Kim Collier will direct the season-opening Seeds, Philip Akin will direct The Wilberforce Hotel and Micheline Chevrier will direct Fury, while Garratt will direct Mary’s Wedding, the final play of the season. Including himself, Garratt has assembled a team of directors who are all, in their own right, artistic directors. Collier has been the artistic director of Vancouver’s Electric Company Theatre since 2013, Akin has been the artistic director of Obsidian Theatre, which he founded in 2000, since 2006 and Chevrier is the artistic and executive director of Montreal’s Imago Theatre. Garratt felt it was important to bring in fellow artistic directors to direct shows in this, his first season at the helm. All three directors are celebrated members of the theatre community who Garratt says he’s had his eye on for some time. When he first presented the 2015 season the Festival’s Board of Directors, Garratt said he listed the three directors as part of a “blue sky” session. Much to his delight, all three were willing to work in Blyth for this year’s Festival. “That’s really exciting for me,” Garratt said. While Garratt plans to share the talents of the three directors with the Blyth Festival audience for the first time, he says he’s also hoping that the relationship will be mutually beneficial, in that he hopes these artists will be able to take something away from working in Blyth as well. “Across the country, Blyth has a reputation as a bit of a closed shop and I wanted to open that up,” Garratt said. “Blyth has changed not only my career, but my life. I wanted to expose more artists to that and expand that family.” Over the course of her career, Collier has directed shows for many theatre companies all over the country. In 2004, she directed and led the creation of Storyeum, a $22 million professional theatre exploration of the history of British Columbia and then in 2010 she was selected as the recipient of the Elinore and Lou Siminovitch Prize, the most prestigious theatre award in the country. In addition to her esteemed theatre credentials, Garratt feels Collier’s skill set is perfect for the challenges Seeds presents. “Seeds uses video projector technology, so I wanted someone who is able to use that in a smooth way,” Garratt said of Collier, adding that while Collier was in Vancouver, she was involved with a number of agricultural issues as well and has an understanding of the play’s subject matter. As for Akin, Garratt said he has seen many of Akin’s plays over the years and has a tremendous amount of respect for his work in the world of Canadian theatre on and off the stage. Akin is a founding member of Obsidian Theatre, Canada’s leading black theatre company. Garratt says that while Obsidian has endeavoured to produce work by black artists, the company has also gone to great lengths to educate young, emerging artists through the Obsidian Mentor/Apprenticeship Program. Over the years Akin has been honoured in a number of different ways. In 2010, he received the Silver Ticket Award for his outstanding contribution to the arts, presented by the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts. He also received the Mallory Gilbert Leadership Award, the Bra D’Or Award from the Playwright’s Guild of Canada and was The Toronto Sun’s Performance Artist of the Year, all in 2011. One of Akin’s many skills that Garratt felt would connect well with this season’s The Wilberforce Hotel is his ability to direct clear storytelling. Garratt also said that because The Wilberforce Hotel explores the world of minstrel shows, which were produced on the Memorial Hall stage into the 1930s, that subject matter requires a specific voice to help lend legitimacy to the story. Often, Garratt says, minstrel shows are viewed in a very “narrow” way, as being “totally inappropriate”. However, Garratt feels, Akin will be able to speak to the subject matter with authority, which is another reason he felt he was the perfect man to direct The Wilberforce Hotel. With Chevrier at the helm of Fury, Garratt feels that her long-standing relationship with playwright Peter Smith provides the perfect balance the show needs. In a recent meeting with Chevrier, Smith and Sam Sholdice, Fury’s composer, Garratt says it was great to observe the history and balance between Smith and Chevrier, with Chevrier providing a straight line through the project, while Smith tends to favour the scenic route. Chevrier has directed stage shows all over the country and has taught at a number of notable Canadian schools, such as the National Theatre School and the University of Alberta, as well as Concordia, McGill, York and Dalhousie Universities, among others. Garratt will be directing the season’s final show, Mary’s Wedding, and he says that once the season was set, he immediately knew which show he wanted to direct. He says the play, written by Stephen Massicotte, is so beautifully written, both in its story and its language, that it made his decision an easy one. “I find the story of Mary’s Wedding to be so much about love, but also about how fleeting life is and yet, at the same time, about how all-enduring life is,” Garratt said. The story, Garratt says, is, at its heart, a love story, but when taking into account its time period, it’s also about so much more. “It’s about Mary and Charlie – these two young people who are standing on the edge of history without knowing it,” Garratt said. He likened it to a famous World War II photograph of a library in London, England where three men browse the bookshelves in the library, which is without a roof after consistent bombing. Garratt said that the power of art to comfort and endure, even in the face of historical uncertainty, has always been a powerful message to him and one that is carried throughout Mary’s Wedding – a romance that endures, while the world crumbles. Garratt says he’s now deep into the casting process for all four shows, now that all four directors have been confirmed. Seeds opens the 2015 Blyth Festival season on June 26, followed by The Wilberforce Hotel on July 3, Fury on July 31 and Mary’s Wedding on Aug. 7. The Festival box office opened to members on Feb. 2 and opens to the public on April 1. For more information, call the Festival box office at 519-523-9300 or visit www.blythfestival.com Tickets available at the Blyth Festival Box Office or by calling 1-877-862-5984. Also available online at www.blythfestival.com FRIDAY, MARCH 20, 2015 - 7 PM - BLYTH MEMORIAL HALL Faith- In-Song Sponsored by “ABC Women’s Ministry” of Auburn, Blyth, Clinton Friday, February 6 at 7:30 pm at Blyth Christian Reformed Church Featuring: ~ St. Andrew’s Praise Team ~ John De Jager ~ D. Hiller Family ~ The Garratt Brothers ~ and others Admission is a free-will offering to North Huron Community Food Share. Presentation - North Huron Community Food Share Representative 273 Hamilton St., Blyth • 519-523-4590 www.blytheastsidedance.com Blyth East Side Dance Learn the Salsa Entertainment StopsStopsStopsStopsStops a l o n g the wayalongtheway A VISITORS’ GUIDE TO HURON COUNTY stopsalonglakehuron.com Look for entertainment ideas on our Stops Along the Way website at... 430 Queen Street, Blyth, Ontario 226-523-9720 Specialty Coffees & Espresso Bar Live Music with Jennica & Janelle Saturday, February 7, 2015 12:30 pm By Shawn Loughlin The Citizen