HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2013-08-15, Page 10PAGE 10. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, AUGUST 15, 2013.Young Company explores county employment
A year after the successful launch
of The Farm 2012, Blyth Festival’s
Young Company decided to look at
the other parts of Huron County with
their collective show this year,
Working in the County.
Dealing with people from, as the
show’s cast explained it, every
industry except agriculture, the
group interviewed people from
across Huron County to answer a
couple simple questions about who
works where and why.
What they found, however, was
that beyond the work, beyond job
satisfaction, beyond employees and
employers, there were a lot of
different opinions about how the
world works and how Huron County
really is.
This year’s Young Company had
fewer members than years past,
featuring seven actors under the
direction of Martha Ross.
Young Company Co-ordinator
Beth Beardsley of Wingham took to
the stage with cast members
Nicholas Beardsley of Wingham,
Jillian Bjelan of Hensall, Emma
Enders of Wingham, Marlayna
Kolkman of Blyth, Genevieve Pitre
of Goderich and Julie Vincent of
Seaforth and rehearsed from July 8
to Aug. 6 to prepare for their earlier-
than-normal run of August 7-11 at
the Phillips Studio. The Young
Company has typically been on the
Phillips Studio stage at the end of the
season but they have been
supplanted this year by
Gary Kirkham’s Falling: A Wake
which runs from Aug. 28 to
Sept. 7.
As for the inspiration of the play,
Bjelan explained that, after last
year’s success, it just made sense.
“As a collective with Martha, we
decided to interview people and take
that information, and our own
opinions, into the show,” she said.
“Last year, when we did the The
Farm 2012 show, which was the
inspiration for this year’s Beyond the
Farm Show, we saw how well it can
work.”
Beth explained that they decided
to focus on pretty much anything but
agriculture and look at pretty much
everyone in the work force.
“We focused on anyone who has a
job really that isn’t anything to
directly do with agriculture,” she
said. “We looked at mainly adults,
but really, we were looking at
anyone from their 20s to however
old Don Scrimgeour is.”
Nicholas explained they ended up
talking to more of the upper
members of companies versus the
employees on the ‘front line’.
“We interviewed a lot of
managers, a lot of big-boss-types
and only a few workers,” he said.
“What we ended up finding was that
those people who are the bosses and
those people with their own business
say they’re happy with their lives
and that the workers usually weren’t.
Some of them said they
were just working to get to the
weekend.”
There was also a divide, according
to the group, between ages and
attitudes about the area.
“Teens seem to not enjoy the area
and want to get out of Huron
County,” Beth said. “However,
people with jobs, with careers, like
it. They don’t see it as somewhere
that people get stuck.”
The play was designed to be
active, comical and keep the
audience on its toes according to
Bjelan and, because cast members
used both their own attitudes and
beliefs mixed in with those they
found through their interviews, a
good reflection of the working world
for those of all ages.
“We included our own monologes
and our own personal experiences
this year because, last year, with the
Farm Show, we didn’t really have as
much of an understanding with the
story, we didn’t relate as much.”
The level of how much they
related to some of the professionals
even surprised some of the crew.
“We interview Elli Cohen, he’s a
lawyer in Goderich,” Nicholas
explained. “I really wasn’t ready for
what I saw when I walked into his
office. I expected it to be one way,
but it was very modern and nice. It
was like walking into an office on a
television show.”
Interviewees like Cohen thought
that they didn’t have much to tell the
youth, according to Beth, however,
in the end, they didn’t have aninterview they didn’t get a story outof.
“A lot of people were hesitant to
be interviewed by us,” Beth said.
“They would say that we wouldn’t
get anything from them but we
found out that everyone has a story
to tell.”
One of those hesitant interviewees
was the co-owner of Pianovations,
Londesborough’s Lianne
Hoogenboom.
The Young Company crew
interviewed Hoogenboom who has
an interesting story about how she
became involved in her business.
Hoogenboom’s career came after
she refinished a piano that she found
through her job cleaning homes and
refinishing old furniture people
would ask her to take to the landfill.
After that, she found employment
through the company that she
refinished the piano for, and
eventually came home to Huron
County to start doing it on her
own.
“That kind of story is interesting
and shows that people around here
didn’t just fall into the positions they
are in, there is always a reason,”
Beth said.
Putting the play together was an
interesting experience for the group
as, with fewer members than normal,
there was a lot more work for each
person to do.
The experience, whilechallenging, was rewarding howeveras the group said each one of them
grew and learned things about
themselves and theatres, the most
important of which is that nothing is
out of bounds when it comes to the
final product.
“We were just joking around on
stage one day when we were
working and something we joked
about ended up in the final draft of
the play,” Beth said. “You don’t
forget that kind of stuff.”
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Young Company
The Blyth Festival’s Young Company debuted its show, Working in the County earlier this
month at the Phillips Studio. The cast consists of, back row, co-ordinator Beth Beardsley of
Wingham. Middle row, from left: Wingham’s Emma Anders, Julie Vincent of Seaforth and Jillian
Bjelan of Hensall. Front row, from left are Genevieve Pitre from Goderich, Wingham’s Nicholas
Beardsley and Blyth’s Marlayna Kolkman. (Denny Scott photo)
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The Citizen
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