Village Squire, 1979-11, Page 5James
Reaney
Back
where he started out
for his latest play
BY KEITH ROULSTON
1979 sees an important date for Stratford's Central Secondary
School. It's the 100th anniversary and as expected the school is
having a year-long celebration.
Other schools could be expected to do the same thing of
course. But how many other schools could turn to a former
student to provide the biggest event in the celebration; a former
student who has won three Governor General's awards for poetry
and the highest prize in the land for drama?
But that's what Central Secpndary School was able to do. The
former student was James Reaney who grew up on a farm on the
edge of the city and attended Central. Working with students
and school officials he has created a play for the centennial which
will be on display at the Avon Theatre Nov. 15, 16 and 17.
The play is called King Whistle and deals with the general
strike of 1933 in Stratford, a strike of factory workers which was
of such concern that the army was called out. Reaney organized
students to research the history of the event then wrote a play
which will include more than 80 actors, singers and dancers all
recruited from the community. The production is under the
direction of Jerry Franken associate director of NDWT Theatre in
Toronto. z theatre Mr. Reaney has bees: closely associated with
over the years.
This summer and fall has seen Reaney spending a lot more
time in his old home town of Stratford writing, refining the play
and watching early rehearsals of King Whistle. His roots have
remained strong with the community even though his home for
many years has been London where he is a Professor of English
at the University of Western Ontario. His mother and stepfather
still live in a small cottage on the edge of the old homestead. The
house he grew up in is a sort of creative headquarters for the
professionals involved in the play. We talked there one day as
Reaney recalled how he got involved in the arts in the first place.
There is a tradition of writing plays at Central, he recalled,
even long before the Stratford Festival came into being. When
he was there, Mr. Reaney recalls, one of the teachers wrote a
play, the young James Reaney wrote a play and two fellow
students wrote plays. English teachers at the high school had a
strong interest in theatre and produced plays with students
involved. One of the students who got the theatre bug through
these teachers was Tom Patterson who later was the driving
November 1979, Village Squire 3