Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1989-06-14, Page 26PAGE 26. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 14, 1989. Entertainment Designer back after 12 years For Shawn Kerwin, the set designer who returned to the Blyth Festival for the first time this year after 12 years away, it’s the things that haven’t changed at the Festi­ val and Blyth itself that are almost as important as the things that have. After spending two summers at the Muskoka Festival, five seasons at the Stratford Festival, a year in New York and more years moving from one theatre to another across Canada she feels a little like she’s returning home coming to Blyth. She’s designing “Sticks and Stones’’ the James Reamey play on the Donnelly murders that opens June 21. One of the first things she looked for when she drove into Blyth this spring was to see the population sign and to see that the population is now listed at 900 instead of 800 gave her a little thrill. And she says, although the Festival has grown at a much faster rate than the village, it’s nice to find the same feeling of everybody working together for a cause and a feeling that the community really supports the Festival. The Festival was in only its third season when the young designer arrived in 1977. In those days one designer designed every play in the Festival’s season. Not only that, the designer also painted the sets and did a hundred other little jobs. The space above the village municipal office which will soon be abandoned as the sets, props and costume shops holds great feeling for her, Shawn says. She was the person who first entered that space and began to clean up after it had been virtually unused since World War II. It was she who took away the teacup still sitting there as if someone had just gotten up from tea, she who took down the curtains so old and dusty they nearly disintegrated in her hands and she who spent three days cleaning up the accumulated dust to make the space usable. It was her contribu­ tion to the building of the Festival, she says. Until then the sets, costumes and props had all been built in odd corners of Memorial Hall at odd times when rehearsals weren’t going on. It was the first time the technical crews had had space of their own and it seemed like a great srep forward. When she visits the new shops in the Festival’s expanded “garage’’ on Dinsley Street East she sees just how far the Festival has come, she says. The Festival even uses a welder to build sets, something that was unheard of back in the third season. She realized the change her first day back in Blyth, she said. She knew, from being here to see a show a few season’s back, that there were now real dressing rooms and she remembered having seen a box office at the north side of Memorial Hall so she went there to ask for Festival Production Mana­ ger Ray Salverda. When she was pointed toward the Festival’s ad­ ministration building, she still re­ membered it as the bank where kids used to sit on the steps after hours. When she went in and saw computers in the office, she realiz­ ed how much had changed. The highest technology in the old days was a power saw, she says. Remembering 1977 she says she feels lucky, not only being part of one of the formative years of the Festival but also being here when Blyth celebrated its centennial. She remembers working late in the costume shop above the clerk's office one night during the celebra­ tion and hearing the sound of BLYTH LEGION tt 2 BALL” GOLF SATURDAY, JULY 29, 1989 WINGHAM GOLF COURSE TEE0FF:1P.M. $30.00/COUPLE LUNCH AFTERWARDS PROCEEDSTOWARDS BUILDING FUND Contact Keith Lapp526-7753or Don Albrechtas 523-4471 for tickets CANADA PENSION SEMINAR Designer returns After 12 years away from the Blyth Festival at places like Stratford and New York City Shawn Kerwin returns this year to design the set for “Sticks and Stones’’ the play about the Donnelly murders. JUNE 21. 1989 AT 7:30 P.M. ROYAL CANADIAN LEGION BR. 218 BRUSSELS EVERYONE WELCOME Seminar conducted by Federal Clientservice Officer-Jim Hussey bagpipes at midnight. She went to look out the window and was stunned by the sight of a shirt-tail parade with men walking down the street behind the band, clad in women’s nightgowns. It’s a mem­ ory that has stuck with her ever since, the usually-quiet Blyth main street teaming with people in weird getups at midnight. She remembers the Centennial Parade, she says, which was about the best parade she can ever remember. All of which, she says, makes her feel like a relic of the past as the Festival celebrates its 15th season. “People say, ‘you must have been here when they had dressing rooms in the trailer out back’ and 1 tell them 1 was here before the trailer,” she laughs. Trailer dressing rooms were only a dream as actors dressed in the Memorial Hall kitchen and made their way through all kinds of weather, outside and up the back stairs to the stage. She remembers too, when hous­ ing, still often far from first class for actors, might be a house several actors shared near town that didn’t have a floor in a livingroom. She shared a house with James and Anne Roy that had no electricity or running water. That housing problem is one of the examples of how the Festival has grown wisely, she says. “Peo­ ple here seem to find good solu­ tions to problems,” she says. In housing, for instance, the Festival takes the worry out of both ends of the housing situation, renting from the landlord and making sure he doesn't have to worry about being left without being paid his rent while also relieving the company members of worries about where they will live and how they will get furniture. “The place seems to have grown in a really wise way,” she says. All sides of the operation from the backstage crews to the people on stage to the administration seem to have gotten an equal part of the expansion that has happened over the years. “The company has grown, but it’s managed to keep the feel. It’s a nice size where you feel we’re all working together toward the same goals. “I feel like it’s matured in a nice way,” she says. “It hasn’t lost its sense of community.” She remem­ bers the generosity of the commun­ ity in supporting the theatre; remembers going into Gore’s Hardware store and walking out with all kinds of things to stock the shelves of the small-town hardware store in “The Shortest Distance Between Two Points”. The support of the community still seems positive, she says. Belgrave WMS hears of Zambia Continued from page 10 chards, on furlough from Zambia, told of her work there. Mrs. Nicholson gave a report on the spring rally in Ripley and she read a poem, “Watch and Pray”. Members were reminded of the Children’s Rally at Kintail on June 13. An invitation was received from Calvin-Brick United Church to a meeting June 21 at 8 p.m. Mrs. Dalrymple read a poem “Old Sayings”. The hymn “Tell me the old, old story” was sung. Mrs. Scott closed with prayer. Brussels-area director leads Guelph theatre project A Brussels area theatre director is involved in an experimental theatre project that will help the disadvantaged tell their story. Joan Chandler and her theatre company Sheatre are involved with Headlines Theatre from Vancouver and Mixed Company theatre from Toronto in the project that will help people who have had problems with housing present their own stories.__________________ The people involved in the project, single mothers, runaway teens and people who have been kicked out of their homes by unscrupulous landlords, will work with the theatre professionals to write and create two short plays, about 15 minutes long. When the plays are presented in Guelph later this week the people Continued on page 27 TOWN AND COUNTRY HOMEMAKERS 11TH ANNUAL DINNER MEETING GODERICH TOWNSHIP HALL HOLMESVILLE TUESDAY, JUNE 20,1989 7:00 P.M. DINNER Entertainment: Harmony Kings Price: $10.00 Phone Bill King 887-6314, Helen Underwood 335-3579 SATURDAY, JUNE 24 C’NON DANCING TO "THE WHISKEY JACK MUSIC CO." Blyth Arena Floor Tickets $5.00/person at the door [Age of Majority required] “IT’S OUR BIGGEST EVER SUMMER DANCE” W BLYTH LIONS CLUB To ensure tickets for your group call Don Scrimgeour at 523-4551.