HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1988-08-17, Page 5Heat promotes expansion THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 17, 1988. PAGE 5.
The heat of summer, the cold of winter and the rapid growth
of the theatre have the Blyth Festival looking at expansion
Dana Wilson, [left] Capital Grants Officer with the Ministry of Culture and Communications,
tours cramped backstage facilities at Blyth Memorial Hall with Marian Doucette, Festival
board president. The Festival’s $1.8 million expansion would provide better facilities for
both theatre patrons and staff.
Dana Wilson, Capital Grants Officer with
the Ontario Ministry of Culture and
Communications, picked a good day to see
the facilities of the Blyth Festival backstage
areas Saturday. It was like most of the other
days this summer: stifling; hot enough to
show the conditions under which the
backstage workers at the Festival sweat to
produce some of the best theatre in Canada.
Even with fans on the air inside the
Festival’s “garage” on Dinsley Street is so
heavy with heat and humidity, it’s hard to
breathe. The building in late afternoon, is
empty but in a couple of hours it will be filled
for the second time in the day with young
actors from around the area, putting on
“Dinsley, The Soap Not the Street’’ for a
perspiring audience.
Ms. Wilson is touring the theatre with
Linda Lentz, Project Co-ordinator for the
Festival’s Capital Campaign. She’s here to
see first hand theconditions the Festival
Festival faces big challenge
to meet grant deadline
When the Blyth Festival Board of
Directors took up the challenge last October
to build the $1.8 million expansion plan
proposed, itdidn’tknowjusthowbig the
challenge would be.
Currently the Festival Board is scurrying
to come up with half its $620,000 share of the
project by September 7 in order to qualify for
government grants.
The pressure arose when the provincial
government said the Festival must have half
its own portion of the funding plus a
commitment from the federal government to
provide money to the project by the
September 7 deadline or it would lose the
current commitment of half of the cost of the
project and would have to reapply under a
wants to improve with its $1.8 million
expansion plan for both the Memorial Hall
main building and the garage.
To make her way to the large open area in
the back end of the garage that’s a
combination storage space in winter,
rehearsal hall in spring and theatre for the
young company in summer, Ms. Wilson has
come through a narrow alley between old
sets and furniture stacked nearly to the
ceiling on both sides. Ms Lentz points out
some problems unique to the Festival: the
fact that each year to accommodate the
company members who converge on Blyth
from across Candaa, the Festival has to rent
dozens of homes and the homes must then be
furnished, which means when falls comes
the Festival has a huge storage headache for
all the furniture.
The heat and the crowding are evidenced
throughout the tour of the other Festival
facilities. Upstairs above the Blyth munici-
different program that would provide only
one third funding.
Money has been flooding in (project
co-ordinator Linda Lentz says thousands of
dollars are coming in daily from theatre
patrons who want to help) but the deadline is
approaching fast too.
In addition the Festival, according to
Katherine Kaszas, artistic director, is in a
Catch 22 position because the province won’t
commit its funds until the federal govern
mentcommits its portion and the federal
government won’t make a commitment until
it’s sure the province won’t back out of its
grant.
So far the Festival has raised nearly
$200,000 towards its goal.
pal offices, the shops for building sets, props
and costumes are proof that necessity is the
mother of invention. The Festival took over
the building in 1977 and eventually gutted
theflimsy partitions that had been there
since Red Cross bandage-wrapping sessions
were held during World War II. Each year
there are more things bought, made or
donated to the theatre that must be stored.
While sets are generally torn apart,
costumes and props are saved. To make the
best use of space in the old building
mezzanine levels have been built and
workers are crowded into smaller and
smaller areas as possessions increase.
Karen Steele, in her third year as
seamstress at the Festival knows the
problems connected with producing a show
under the current conditions. There are
times, she says, in the second-floor,
unventilated costume shop when the term
‘ ‘ sweat shop ’ ’ really kept springing to mind.
Along with long-time costume designer
Kerry Hackett, Karen pushed the costuming
facilities to the limit for the recently opened
“Fires in the Night”. With a cast of 22, and,
many costumes from the 1920’s, ‘30’s, ‘40’s
and *60’s it meant a huge task to make all the
costumes needed. She says she never
actually counted how many costumes there
were because she didn’t want to know but
there were costumes hanging on every peg,
every hook and every hanger in the cramped
costume shop. Staff had to make two trips to
a drycleaners in Clinton to get more hangers.
While the show’s costumes were put
together in the break between the summer’s
two hottest spells, it was still a miserable job
as most of the period costumes were made of
heavy, scratchy wool.
The job would have been worse except that
many old costumes were able to be recycled
from the store of costumes collected over the
past 14 seasons. Each year as the collection
gets larger, the space for the seamstress and
cutter gets smaller. On the mezzanine level
in the shop is a scary tunnel winding through
the costume collection to another storage
area for hats, shoes and all the other items
needed to costume the actors.
The collection saves a lot of work and
money, Karen says, but it’s in danger
because there isn’t enough room so things
like fedora hats must be crushed down into a
box. The dampness in the unheated building
in winter, the heat in summer, the dust from
the nearby carpentry shop and the plaster
from the crumbling ceiling all add to the
danger the costume collection faces.
Under the theatre’s new plans the
costume shop, along with the carpentry shop
and the props shop (all those small little
things from tables to lamps to the gun that is
central to a murder mystery) will be located
Architect Chris Borgal, left, and Festival Artistic Director Katherine Kaszas look at the
model for the proposed addition to the Blyth Memorial Hall when It was unveiled last fall.
Another addition is planned on the Festival’s garage on Dinsley St. and renovation of the
upper floor of the village’s municipal office is also planned.
clutter of the Festival’s costume shop where
every spare corner is crammed with hats,
shoes, coats and dresses from past
productions which may be reused in the
future to save time and money.
in an addition built onto the rear of the
garage on Dinsley street.
Karen says the new plans, designed by
former Blyth architect Chris Borgal will
provide the costume shop with more room to
work and room for more sewing machines
(two people normally do the costume work
because there just isn’t room in the present
room for more than two). There will be
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