HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1995-03-01, Page 27Looking ahead
Janet Amos mimes looking through a telescope as she
reads a scene from Ballad For a Rumrunner's Daughter
during a party at the Bainton Art Gallery Thursday. Ms
Amos, artistic director of the Blyth Festival, announced the
1995 Blyth Festival season and performed some scenes.
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THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 1, 1995. PAGE 27.
Theatre community mourns
passing of Nicholas Pennell
Three world premieres and the
return of two of the most popular
plays in the history of the Blyth
Festival headline the 1995 season
of the Blyth Festival, announced
Thursday by Artistic Director Janet
Amos.
The Festival's 21st season will
kick off June 16, a week earlier
than last year, with Ballad For A
Rum Runner's Daughter, an east
coast adventure from the prohibi-
tion era written by Laurie Fyffe
with music by Beth Bartley. It's a
passionate tale of love, ambition,
and betrayal set during the era
when many people in coastal areas
were involved in smuggling
whiskey into the U.S. Clare is a girl
consumed by her love of the sea
and passion for the young RCMP
officer determined to thwart her
rum running ambitions.
One of the Festival's all-time
most popular plays will return as
the second production of the year.
The Tomorrow Box by Anne
Chislett wasn't premiered at Blyth
but became identified with the Fes-
tival after productions two years in
a row in the early 1980s and a tour
of Ontario.
The comedy tells the story of two
marriages in an Ontario farming
family where lifestyles and old val-
ues are challenged. Maureen Coop-
er, a traditional housewife for 40
years, is stunned to discover the
family farm has been sold without
her knowledge. Jack, her husband,
has decided to move them to Flori-
da. After 40 years of putting every-
one else first, Maureen finally
reclaims her life.
The hilarious comedy has been
produced by regional theatres all
across Canada and, translated into
Japanese, has been seen by more
than 100,000 people in various pro-
ductions in Japan.
A new writer, Nora Harding of
London, dips into her own experi-
ence in England during World War
for This Year, Next Year. Set in
Bournemouth, Eng. in 1944, this is
a touching story of a mother and
her three daughters' survival during
the last months of the war. The var-
ious characters include Mum, a
courageous woman with a mysteri-
ous past; Ivy, who suffers deeply
from the loss of her husband whose
ship has been sunk in the war;
Sheila, who is having a wild time
entertaining troops; and Norah,
who desperately wants to marry her
Canadian soldier boyfriend. Big
band tunes and popular songs of the
war underscore this warm and
moving tale.
One of the Festival's most popu-
lar playwrights, Ted Johns, pro-
duces his newest effort with Jake's
Place. Jake Palmer lives alone and
unloved on the edge of town and on
the margins of society. His battle to
get a driveway to his ramshackle
house leads him into the conun-
drums of town politics, romance
and some of the great questions of
the millennium. Johns has previ-
ously written such Festival hits as
Garrison's Garage and The School
Show as well as He Won't Come In
From The Barn which will be the
final production of the season.
This will be a remount of last
year's sold-out, held-over produc-
tion about Aylmer Clarke who
retreats to his barn and refuses to
come out to a world he no longer
feels comfortable in. He resists the
pressures of his son to modernize
and expand, the advice of his doc-
tor to relax, and the temptations of
his wife to visit the Old Country.
Featuring live cows, pigs and
chickens, the play has now been a
huge success in three different pro-
ductions at the Festival and many
people had to be turned away when
last year sold out. A special two-
week return engagement beginning
Aug. 29, will end Festival season.
Ms Amos announced the season
at a party and press conference at
the Bainton Art Gallery, reading
portions of two of the new scripts.
She said that unlike last year,
which was a "life and death" season
when there was doubt that the Fes-
tival would survive right up until
attendance improved (up 30 per
cent from 1993), this year hasn't
quite so much pressure. Even with
a slightly smaller audience than last
As the Huron County Board of
Education leaps into the 21st centu-
ry, four local educators are leading
the way.
Stephen Oliver, Maggie Crane,
Richard Maertens and Harry
Brooks recently participated in a
video-conferencing connection
between Central Huron Secondary
School in Clinton, Goderich Dis-
trict Collegiate Institute, Villanova
Secondary School in LaSalle and
St. Michael Catholic Secondary
School in Stratford, to bring guest
speaker Dr. David Thornburg to a
wider audience.
The system allows those
involved to interact with the other
sites and to experience the capabili-
ties of distance education.
Dr. Thornburg spoke on the shift-
ing vision for the communication
age, following the theme of Focus
on Technology and the uses of
technology for the delivery of an
integrated common curriculum.
year the season will be successful,
she said.
She praised the contributions of
the acting company, technical crew
and administrative staff for taking
on extra burdens when the Festival
was short staffed last year to help
make the season a success (a sur-
plus of $146,000, reducing the
accumulated deficit of $229,000).
Asked how long she intended to
stay at the Festival, Ms Amos said
she hoped to complete the 1996
season, but that would depend on
how much creative energy she feels
she has left after this season. The
job is exhausting, she said, and it's
hard to get the creative energy to
develop new scripts.
But it's also exciting, she said.
"The Blyth Festival is an absolutely
exciting place to work: the scripts,
the audience. It's a really astound-
ing place."
With enormous sadness the
Stratford Festival announces the
passing last week of one of its most
beloved actors, Nicholas Pennell,
after a brief battle with cancer. Mr.
Pennell was 56 years old.
A veteran of 23 consecutive
seasons with the Stratford Festival,
Nicholas Pennell was to appear in
this year's productions of The
Country Wife, Macbeth and
Amadeus. He has performed over
77 roles at the Festival, including
the title roles in King John,
Macbeth, Richard II, Hamlet and
Pericles, as well as John Worthing
in The Importance of Being Earnest
and Orlando in As You Like B.
He was a favourite at Chicago-
area theatres and most recently
appeared in Sleuth at the Court
Theatre. His one-man show, A
Variable Passion, toured to many
major American cities. With over
250 television credits, he was best
known for his role as Michael Mont
in The Forsyte Saga. He frequently
served as a guest teacher at
universities across North America.
Mr. Pennell was a dedicated
professional with a boundless
generosity of spirit. On Feb. 20,
the first day of rehearsals for th
1995 season, he sent a letter to the
company, stage management and
crew in which he passed along his
regrets on having to miss his first
season in 24 years and shared his
thoughts on the challenge of the
rehearsal process and the joy of
acting.
"Each year," he wrote, "the
miracle renews: we band of artists
are released into the adventure
again; to renew the act of faith in
the recreation of the spirit of
imagination."
In sharing the news of Mr.
Pennell's death with the acting
company, Artistic Director Richard
Monette made the following
statement: "My dear friend
Nicholas was a much loved
Stratford Festival company
member for 23 years. His
dedication, talent and generosity
were an inspiration to us all. To
Nicholas the theatre was a
vocation, and in his last letter to the
Stratford Festival company he
wrote of the redemptive power of
art. He will be deeply missed and
his rich legacy fondly cherished."
Mr. Monette recalled a recent
conversation in which Mr. Pennell
had expressed gratitude for his life
in the theatre, and in particular for
having had the opportunity and the
privilege of speaking the words of
Shakespeare, spoken by Hamlet in
his death scene: "If thdu didst ever
hold me in thy heart, absent thee
from felicity awhile, and in this
harsh world draw thy breath in
pain, to tell my story."
During the 1992 season, Mr.
Pennell starred in World of
Wonders, adapted for the stage by
Elliott Hayes from the novel by
Robertson Davies. In a statement,
Mr. Davies said that "to the lover
of the theatre at its highest reached
Nicholas Pennell was an unfailing
delight, and the special warmth of
applause that always greeted his
appearance in the 'general call' at
the end of a performance was
evidence of that, whether his role
had been great or small. His loss is
a loss indeed, for he was an artist of
a very rare sort, and his death
diminishes our hopes, though it
leaves us rich memories.
A service of thanksgiving for the
life of Nicholas Pennell was held
on Sunday, Feb. 26 at the Festival
Theatre.
Stag c Doe
for
Mark Krahn
and
Trudy Passchier
Saturday, March 4
at Vanastra Rec Centre
9 p.m. -1 a.m.
For more information call
482-5825 Evenings
E ntertainment
Amos announces '95 season
Educators video-conference