HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen-Blyth Festival 2000, 2000-06-21, Page 46PAGE 22. BLYTH FESTIVAL SALUTE, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21, 2000.
Tanya Greve moved
backstage from on stage
By Mark Nonkes
Freelance Writer
Tanya Greve did not always plan on becoming a
stage manager. Greve is an acting graduate from the
University of Toronto.
“I realized I enjoyed being behind the scenes
opposed to on the stage,” she said.
In her fourth year she discovered she wanted to do
backstage work but finished
the acting program anyway.
Out of university Greve
worked as a stage manager
in Toronto and came to
Blyth in the 1995 season.
“It's been fun ever since.
I’ve never looked back.”
In her first season Greve
worked on The Tomorrow
Box and He Won't Come in
from the Barn. Greve recalls
walking the cows
stage to the barn
after a show.
“It was one of
memorable shows
could have as your
from the
nightat
the most
you
first
experience at The Blyth Festival.”
This year Greve stage manages Anne and The
Drawer Boy.
"Anne is such a lovely story. They make you laugh
and they make you cry. As does The Drawer Boy'.'
It is the town, the theatre facility and people who
work for the theatre that keeps Greve coming back to
the festival.
“You get a real community feel. Since the company
increases the population of Blyth by 10 per cent you
Tanya Greve
feel part of the community.”
Last year Greve worked on Big
Box and When the Reaper Calls
at the festival.
Returning this season was like
time flew by for Greve.
“It was like I left for the week
end.”
Over the winter Greve worked
on three shows at the Factory
Theatre and a show at Theatre
Passe Muraille.
Greve said she never regrets not
pursuing acting.
“There's too many lines to
memorize . . . it’s easier to work
backstage . . . it’s not as
terrifying.”
Stage manager Christine Oakey can’t
imagine working outside of the theatre
Stage manager Christine Oakey
cannot ever remember a time when
theatre was not in her life.
Oakey pondered a moment and
realized there was a time because
her family is not in the theatre
industry.
“I can’t imagine myself doing
anything else.”
Oakey is the assistant
manager for Anne and the
manager for the remount of
the Reaper Calls.
“It will be interesting ... to work
on a remount when I was not
stage
stage
When
involved in the original production.”
Oakey hails from Halifax and
this is her fourth season at the Blyth
Festival. Oakey has worked as
assistant stage manager on seven
shows at the festival. When the
Reaper Calls will be the first show
she stage manages for the festival.
Over the winter Oakey worked
on two shows in Halifax and a show
at George Brown College.
Oakey said she plans to return to
Blyth in the future.
“This is where my family is
now.” — MN
Gretel Meyer Odell loves
working in the country
Stage manager Gretel Meyer
Odell is no stranger to rural areas.
She grew up on a farm in PEI and
tried everything from milking cows
to growing organic vegetables.
“When I was nine I started
driving the tractor. When my dad
was gone I used to milk the cows.”
This is Meyer Odell’s third
season at the festival. She loved
spending the summer in Blyth la§t
year when she stage managed The
Great School Crisis of ’99 and
Death of the Hired Man.
“Last year when I came the com
was up to my ankles. And when I
left it had been harvested. It was the
most wonderful way I could have
spent the summer.” _
Meyer Odell stage manages
Corker and Stolen Lives - The Albert
Walker Story this year.
“I love to work on new plays so
I'm very excited for Stolen Lives
because it’s new . . . And I’m from
the East Coast so I'm very excited
about working on Corker because
Wendy Lili is from Nova Scotia.”
During the winter months Meyer
Odell stage managed three young
people’s shows including Not Quite
the Same, a play by Festival Artistic
Director Anne Chislett. The show
toured Toronto high schools and was
nominated for a Dora, the Toronto
theatre awards.
With her husband, Meyer Odell
periodically produces small shows
in a 15-seat theatre in an unused
stairwell in their third floor
apartment.
By the end of the summer Meyer
Odell hopes to sell her 1987 Chevy-
Nova that is “certified but needs a
paint job”.
“In the city I prefer my bicycle.”
Meyer Odell calls the city a
necessary evil for her profession. “I
was bom in the country and I will
one day live in the country again.”
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Hectic backstage work in ‘Corker’ will
keep assistant stage manager running
Assistant stage manager Martin Kenney’s
favorite memory of working in the theatre
was when he was touring a show on
Vancouver Island.
Kenney and some of the people he
worked with had a meal in a small logging
town hotel and found out the owner came
from a few blocks away from where Kenney
grew up in Montreal.
“We had this incredible gourmet meal in
the middle of no where.”
This is Kenney’s first season with the
festival
“I’ve worked with many people who have
been in Blyth so I’ve heard a lot about
Blyth.” Kenney is the
assistant stage manager on Corker and
Stolen Lives — The Albert Walker Story.
In Corker there are many scene changes
and little time to get things off and on the
stage.
“I’ll be doing a lot of running backstage.”
Kenney graduated from Concordia
University in 1993. He has worked as a
production manager and a technical director
in the past. Since 1997 Martin has tried to
work exclusively as a stage manager.
“The more I’m with a headset, the
happier I am.”
Kenney said forming relationships and
meeting people he has worked with before
excites him.
"After you’re done a show you never
know when you’re going to meet again.”
MN
Festival Box Office
523-9300 or
1-877-862-5984
David James: head miracle worker
David James
One of James biggest
challenges as production
manager is operating a repertory
season.
“We'll have a matinee of
one show and an evening
performance of a different show
and have two and a half hours to
completely change the set, the
Every Sunday
In his fifth consecutive
season at the festival,
production manager, David
James said he keeps coming to
Blyth because he can “do good
work”.
“It’s challenging enough to
stay interested but it’s not
crazy.”
James also said the plays here remind
him of where he grew up, on a vegetable
farm in Leamington.
“Often it's small town stories, like where
I grew up.”
In his third year as production manager
James is responsible for
scheduling,
supervising
technicians,
—“Making
opportunity to do their best work.”
matters such as
maintenance and
including
budgets,
up to 15 staff,
designers, and stage managers
it so the artists have an
lighting, sound, costumes, props."
James said he is looking forward to the
“snazzy costumes" in Anne this year. James
said Stolen Lives — The Albert Walker Story,
will be more difficult because it is a new
script.
“Things will be changing through
rehearsal . . . and that will be a certain
challenge.”
During the winter months James is the
production manager at George Brown
College in Toronto.
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