HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2006-07-06, Page 31PAGE A-2. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JULY 6, 2006
Festival, one of country's foremost summer theatres
A major part of summer in Blyth
for more than 30 years has been the
Blyth . Festival, one of Canada's
foremost summer theatres.
• The Festival would not exist
without the foresight of the people of
the Blyth community following
World War I. While other
communities erected statues, the
people of the village raised money
for a magnificent Memorial Hall in
honour of those fromthe community
who serrved in the "Great War".
The hall, with its 500-plus seats,
served as a centre of community
activities for many years but by
1975 when young Blyth-area native
James Roy wanted to start a summer
theatre, the theatre portion of the
building had been little used for
years.
Roy had a vision, not of
producing traditional summer stock
fare, but of performing plays that
spoke to the small town and rural
people of midwestern Ontario. There
was only one problem: there were no
plays that spoke specifically to the
rural experience. The solution was to
write the required plays.
As a result, the Blyth Festival has
become renowned as a producer of
original plays, but not just for that
local audience. Some of those plays
have touched people on a much
wider basis and have gone around
the world to Japan, England,
Australia, Romania and various
parts of the United States. In 2006
the Festival will post an incredible
landmark with its 100th world
Regular museums with staffing
and building maintenance costs are
beyond the means of a village like
Blyth so a group of local residents
came up with a unique solution.
The Blyth Mini Museum project
features kiosks built on the site of
various points of interest in the
village, each dedicated to one aspect
of the village's history.
The project is still in its infancy
with more volunteer labour and
financing required to complete it,
but three of the kiosks have been
installed.
Two of the kiosks are at Blyth
Memorial Hall on Queen Street,
funded by donations from the Blyth
branch of the Royal Canadian
Legion and Legion Ladies Auxiliary.
One of these mini-museums tells
the story of Memorial Hall itself,
premiere.
Artistic Director Eric Coates has
programmed four premieres in this,
the 32nd season of the Festival
starting with the biography of
Canadian music icon Stompin' Tom
Connors. London playwright (and
Seaforth native) David Scott delves
into the colourful and moving past of
the singer-songwriter in The Ballad
of Stompin' Tom. One of Canada's
most admired actors, Randy
Hughson, portrays Tom Connors
from his lonely childhood to his
triumphs on stage.
The Ballad of Stompin' Tom,
directed by Coates, opened the
season June 29 and will run in
repertory throughout the
Campvention and until August 8.
Opening during the week of
Campvention is Sean Dixon's Lost
Heir, a wide-ranging story in which
there are repercbssions when a
young Mennonite woman accepts an
invitation to join a small summer
theatre company against her stern
father's consent. Along the way a
petty thief falls in love with her, he
turns to a local mystic to seek
guidance on how to woo her and a
group of local ruffians threatens to
sabotage the theatre company's
production.
Directed by legendary director
Paul Thompson Lost Heir begins
previews July 5, opens July 7 and
plays in repertory until August 8.
Later in the season two more
plays will open to bring the number
of premieres up too the century
featuring historic photos and a
reproduction of the program from
the opening day in 1921.
The other records Blyth's war
history as well as the history of the
Legion itself.
Another kiosk on the Greenway
trail tells the story of the Canadian
Pacific Railway from its building in
1907 to the last train in 1988.
The committee hopes in, the
future to add other kiosks telling the
history of leather in Blyth, flour
milling, the Butter and Eggs Special
(London, Huron and Bruce
Railway), the flax industry, and so
one
In future, for instance, you'll be
able to look at a photo of the original
brick flour mill and compare it to the
huge complex Howson and Howson
has become today.
mark.
In 1986 two of Blyth Festival's
co-founders Anne Chislett and Keith
Roulston, both playwrights, joined
forces to create Another Season's
Promise, a powerful story of the
Purves family's fight to save their
historic family farm in the face of the
high-interest crisis of the 1980s. The
play was a smash hit, was brought
back for a second season and toured
nationally.
In 2006 Chislett and Roulston
return with Another Season's
Harvest, dealing with the efforts of
an new generation of the PurVes clan
to survive the BSE crisis that strikes
at the heart of their successful beef
operation.
Another Season's Harvest stars
Jerry Franken and Randy Hughson
as two generations of the Purves
family and their differing views on
the future of producing food, our
most precious resource. Directed by
Gil Garratt, it previews August 2 and
opens August 4, then plays in
repertory until September 2.
The celebrated 100th premiere
will be Leanna Brodie's bittersweet
look at the life of an old-time
schoolteacher: Schoolhouse.
Miss Linton is only 18 years old
when she becomes the new teacher
in a schoolhouse full of eager
youngsters and underachieving "big
boys" in 1937. A training school boy
joins the class, adding tension to the
mix. Miss Linton must decide if she
should bow to local pressure and
allow the former delinquent to be
run out of town or heed her own
instincts and foster his remarkable
creativity.
Schoolhouse, directed by
innovative Toronto director Leah
Cherniak, previews August 9 with a
gala opening and celebration of the
100th world premiere on August 11.
It plays in repertory until September
2.
Because the Festival uses a
repertory system, it's possible to
attend one Bonanza Weekend,
August 11-13 and see all four plays
in three days.
Focal point
Built in honour of local war veterans Blyth Memorial Hall
stands proudly in the downtown core. Utilized by community
groups throughout the year, the Hall is also home to the
Blyth Festival productions each summer.
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Kiosks tell Blyth's story
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