The URL can be used to link to this page

Home My WebLink AboutSetting The Stage, 1998-06-24, Page 433. w and Metal pr atiricating & 1:4404 St° Phone 523-4803 Iron Railings - Spiral Staircases - Gates Columns - Dividers - Pool & Yard Fencing Arbors - Trellis - Unique Furniture Candle Holders - Lighting Re-creations Londesborough "Coming back here is like a Originally from Winnipeg, Ari's breath of fresh air. The community parents supported his love of acting is welcoming," he said. from the time he was young. His This season Ari will be mother is a musician and violin performing in Yesteryear by Joanna teacher and his father cherishes his McClelland Glass and Jobs! Jobs! continued on pg. 20 Jobs! by Keith Roulston. Going Out Of BUSINESS SALE Continues Hurry over to Webster's for huge savings on ladies' & children's clothes, jewellery & undergarments & men's, ladies' and children's shoes c. Open Monday - Friday 9:30 a.m. - 8 p.m. Saturday. 9:30 a.m. - 6 p.m. Webster's Clothing & Footwear Queen St., Blyth (519) 523-9709 EVER SAID YOU'D PAY ANYTHING FOR COMFORTABLE SHOES? WELL, NOW YOU'LL PAY CONSIDERABLY LESS EVOLUTION ZA IB Ic ID 0-0 0-0 0-0 10.0 PURSUIT ZA IB Ic 0 0-010-0 0-0 10-0 Stylish NatufalSport shoes are specially designed for O CL comfortable walking. But at these prices, you may WALKER'S CHOICE* want to run in before they're all gone. nil 2 111:0' sTri) family footwear & shoe re air 256 Josephine Street Wingham, Ontario NOG 2W0 519-357-1840 SETTING THE STAGE, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24, 1998. PAGE 19. Diana Belshaw is back in Blyth, this year she is behind the scenes directing Thirteen Hands By Allison Lawlor Diana Belshaw has been acting for over 25 years, but these days her focus has shifted to directing. This season at the Blyth Festival she will be directing the all-woman cast in Thirteen Hands by Carol Shields. "I love acting," she said. "You act for a long time and the next natural step is directing." Diana believes directing should be a collaborative effort. When working on a new play she asks everyone from the costume designer to the actor for their input and then makes her decisions. "Everyone has a contribution to make as part of the creative team," she said. During the casting of Thirteen Hands, Diana had the actors read the script and tell her which characters interested them. She knew she would cast Goldie Semple as Clara but took the other actors' input into consideration when making her casting decisions. Diana believes Thirteen Hands is an important play. "What the play is about for me is the hidden worlds of women we don't value very much." The play is set around a bridge table and tells the stories of By Allison Lawlor paul Ledoux started out trying to write a novel but found the process too lonely, so he turned to the theatre. "The great thing about the theatre is the people. The gratification is fairly quick with theatre," said Paul, the author of Hot Flashes, the musical comedy being produced this season in Blyth's Garage Theatre. Paul co-wrote Hot Flashes with his friend John Roby. John is a veteran composer, playwright and musical director at the Blyth Festival. Hot Flashes developed out of Paul's musical production, Me And My Gals. The musical was first performed last summer in a 50-seat playhouse in White Point, N.S., a small seaside town an hour and a half from Halifax. Last year Paul developed and re- wrote the play. This summer the musical will play in Nova Scotia and in Ontario, at the Lighthouse Theatre, the Blyth Festival and the Bluewater Festival. Ari Cohen is back to perform for his second season at the Blyth Festival. Last year he appeared as Menno Miller in Quiet in the Land and as Owen Melville in The Melville Boys. Ari Cohen: stage actor. women's lives while they play cards. Diana remembers her mother's involvement in women's circles and guilds, where deep friendships were formed and a lot of important community work was done. Diana is excited to be back at the Blyth Festival where she has performed frequently for the past 18 years. Audiences may remember her as Rose in The Dreamland, Lisa in The Tomorrow Box and Marge in Perils of Persephone. "Blyth is central to my belief of what theatre should be. It is theatre that speaks to people." Diana and her husband, Thomas Hauff, founded a theatre company based on this principle. The Canadian Artists Workshop is a new company in the Windsor area. While teaching at the University of Windsor in the early '90s, Diana noticed a lack of professional theatre in the area. The company's first production was based on the life of a Canadian Auto Worker. Thomas played the lead role. "Our first play talked about what people in the area cared about," she said. This fall Diana moves onto a new teaching position in Humber College's theatre department. "Teaching is another passion of This winter Anne, Paul's adaptation of L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, played at the Young People's Theatre in Toronto. Born and raised in Halifax, Paul studied history at Dalhousie University and then went on to study performance art at the college of art in Halifax. He quit performance finding it too pretentious and moved to Montreal to begin his career as a writer. Paul wrote his first play on a bet that he could write a better play than those being performed in Montreal at the time. He won. The play, The Electrical Man, went on to win the Quebec Drama Festival award for best play in 1975. After that he formed his own theatre company and started producing his own plays. Since then he has written 28 plays including Judy! which was nominated for a Dora nomination, Honkey Tonk Angels, a country musical co- written with Ferne Downey, two plays in collaboration with David Young, Love Is Strange and Fire,. which won Dora and Chalmers mine. I think both teaching and directing are about helping people open up to being the best they can be." Diana just stepped down as the professional theatre co-ordinator at Theatre Ontario. She is also the past chair and founding member of the Acting and Modeling Information Service, a non-profit group that helps to inform people about the shady businesses in the industry. Aside from working in theatres across the country, Diana has worked extensively in television and film. Diana Belshaw: director. awards, and an adaptation of the children's story, The Secret Garden (Chalmers Award nomination). His musical Dream a Little Dream, a musical about The Mamas and The Papas, co-written with the group's lead singer, Denny Doherty was recently performed at the Neptune Theatre in Halifax. "I wrote a couple of serious plays when I started out in Montreal," he said. "After the shows I'd look out at the 20 or so people in the audience and I thought, everyone looks really depressed, why am I doing this to them." In addition to writing plays, Paul has written television scripts. He wrote scripts for The Campbells, Groundling Marsh and Street Legal. In 1997 his mystery series, In The Blood, aired on CBC radio. It told the story of a man returning home to Nova Scotia. Paul lives in Toronto but said he is spending more and more time in Nova Scotia where he is the Artistic Director at White Point Theatre. Writing plays a friendly pursuit TV, film and stage actor likes Blyth Festiva- Fact: Blyth Memorial Hall was built in 1920 as a memorial to the fallen in World War I. Located on the Con. south of Bluevale Call Kevin and Jacquie Bishop (519) 887-9379 Shayrina Sheep Farm In Huron County R.R. #2 Bluevale A Working Sheep Farm For You To Visit Live Sheep Presentation Shearing Display Every Sat. at 2 p.m. May - Oct. It's Entertaining, and Educational Gift Shop Group Bookings anytime