Village Squire, 1978-03, Page 44Festival's productions. The hall has also
become a busy place in winter through the
Centre's winter program activities which
include film programs for both adults and
children, touring theatre productions,
school programs, community concerts and
other events.
The future for the 1978 season already
looks bright, even though artistic Director
Roy hasn't yet announced his expected
program. Advance voucher sales (the
equivalent of seasons tickets) are already
ahead of last year.
Like all theatres, however, the Summer
Festival faces some problems. Government
spending freezes have hit hard at
grant -giving government bodies, curtailing
grants at a time when costs ars soaring for
theatres. The problem is aggravated for
theatres which were not well established
before the freezes came into effect. The
rate of growth of government funds is
much slower than say five years ago,
leaving real problems of growth for the
theatres, whose costs raise yearly by large
amounts. In addition raising ticket prices
only tends to drive people away meaning
no real gain in box office revenues.
Still theatres can't afford to stand still if
they are to remain healthy as the Blyth
organization has shown. The small theatres
in Tdronto have realized the need to give
more comfort to their audiences by either
moving out of the old warehouses they
once haunted, or at least dressing the
buildings up. People aren't willing to be
uncomfortable forever for the sake of
culture. Neither are performers, so tfie
two-pronged advance at Blyth is to make
the audience more comfortable through
such additions as air conditioning, and to
make productions easier to mount for the
cast and crew. It should mean a higher
quality of production for audiences and
that everyone will benefit.
While the Blyth company, which
produces new Canadian plays almost
entirely, has not announced its season yet,
Huron Country Playhouse at Grand Bend
has named most of its productions for the
summer.
For the theatre's seventh season,
Artistic Director James Murphy has chosen
what he says will make the Playhouse a
"full -pledged classical popular theatre.
We are finally able to put into effect our
artistic policy -which is to show popular
classics."
Those popular classics will include Neil
Simon's The Odd Couple (July 4-15), from
the 1960's; the "ultimate melodrama of the
1920's", Dracula (July 18-22); Pyjama
Tops, set in the 1950's and based on a
French Farce by Jean de Latraz (July
25-29); the classic musical commedy
Oklahoma from the 1940's (Aug. 1-12) and
The Man Who Came To Dinner, from the
1930's, a comedy about a famous radio
personality who breaks a bone and creates
havoc in the house where he's confined
(Aug. 15-26).
The final production of the season from
Aug. 29 to Sept. 2 will be named at a later
date.
PG. 42. VILLAGE SQUIRE/MARCH1978.
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