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Kelly McIntosh: specializing in horsing around.
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BLYTH FESTIVAL SALUTE, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 13, 2001. PAGE 7.
Donnellys, working with horses dream come true
By Mark Nonkes
Citizen staff
Talk about making an entrance —
in The Outdoor DonneIll's actress
Kelly McIntosh hopes to gallop in
on horseback.
When she came to Blyth to create
Death of the Hired Man two years
ago she dreamed about how much
she would like to do a show outside,
with horses.
"I know how brilliantly that can
work and how much people love
that," the radiant McIntosh said.
McIntosh had worked with horses
in the Okanagan Valley in B.C. for
three years at the Caravan Farm
Theatre.
The Clydesdales were part of a
show like an actor would be,
McIntosh said. At the farm, outdoor
shows were produced in the middle
of winter. McIntosh said the shows
were so popular that they were sold
out before rehearsals even began.
"People would drive through black
ice, dressed up really warmly and
hop on sleighs and off they would go
Into the woods," McIntosh said.
Lo and behold when Blyth
announced an outdoor creation by
Paul Thompson McIntosh was asked
to join.
Since McIntosh moved to a
country home outside of Blyth this
spring she has been taking riding
lessons from the farmer who is
lending two of his horses for the
show.
In The Outdoor Donnellys
McIntosh plays ,three characters;
Maggie Thompson, Norah Kennedy
and Bridget Donnelly.
Maggie Thompson was the
woman who William Donnelly fell
in love with but her father locked her
away, forbidding her to ever see
Donnelly again.
"It's a fantastic love story, Maggie
and Will," McIntosh said.
A year after Maggie was locked up
William Donnelly married Norah
Kennedy. In today's society Norah
Kennedy would be someone who
probably would have left Lucan to
work in a big city, McIntosh said.
"It's as if she wanted to get out of
Lucan, have her own bank account,
have her own job, be an independent
young woman," McIntosh said.
Bridget Donnelly, who McIntosh
plays in the pre-show, is the most
important character of all, McIntosh
said.
This is because Bridget was
completely innocent, McIntosh said.
She was simply visiting her aunt and
uncle when she was murdered by the
mob.
"She was at the wrong place at the
wrong time," McIntosh said.
A key to the show will be to be
able to understand what compels a
whole community to gang up against
a family and kill them, McIntosh
said.
In the collective process there is
the chance to create something out
of nothing, McIntosh said. For the
Donnellys she researched and then
delved inside the characters and
imagined the way
they would have
acted in certain
circumstances.
Creating a
collective piece is
hard work,
McIntosh said,
because there is
no script to tell an
actor what to do.
"It's kind of
like digging for
gold — people
kind of knock
through a lot of
rock and
something comes
up that's a
keeper," McIntosh said.
It was a cabaret night at her
family's cottage near North Bay
when McIntosh was five that
spawned her career in the stage's
spotlight.
The Outdoor Donnellys
Little Kelly' McIntosh rose before Europe who were in the theatre
an audience and sang a song that she world.
still knows off by heart today. "The place was just a Mecca of
"They laughed their heads off and theatricality," McIntosh said.
I had so much fun," She then attended Ryerson and
Throughout high school she was after graduating worked in small
involved in the several productions Toronto theatres throughout her 20s.
and in Grade 12 she was sent to a Then she moved out to B.C. and
theatre festival in Edinburgh, began working in the Okanagan
Scotland on a school trip. Valley at the Caravan Farm Theatre.
It was her first real trip away from In Blyth, McIntosh is thrilled to
home and the place was full of work outdoor and with the horses.
people from North America and "It's like a dream come true,"
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