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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Goderich Signal-Star, 1979-06-14, Page 20PAGE 2A-6ODERICH SIGNAL -STAR, THURSDAY, JUNE 19, 1979 KeithRo uist�n-ho oked early. • from page IA sets up ads and sets type," says Keith. Keith's wife now helps him run the Village Squire which they operate out of their home at R.R. 3 Blyth. They have three children, aged eight to four. BLYTH THEATRE After Keith got to Blyth to become full-time editor of the Standard, he helped to organize an amateur theatre group .there. One evening, reporter - photographer Keith, went to take a picture for his newspaper of the. Lions Club Variety Night being staged in the .. Blyth Memorial Hall. He says he couldn't believe what a nice theatre the hall contained...a theatre that had been sitting there unused for 30 years. He thought to him- self,"Wouldn't it be nice to have summer theatre performed there." He immediately began to promote this idea to the people of Blyth through his newspaper. In 1972 he was one 6f a group of people, organized by the Blyth Board of Trade and the Recreation Com- mittee, who went into the hall to fix it up by pain- ting. and decorating. Before the hall could be used as a theatre, many problems had to be overcome. It needed a new roof and a fire escape and many other things. Keith, despite all of these problems, kept the pot boiling through his paper. Meanwhile, Keith had met Paul Thompson, artistic director of Theatre Passe Muraille, whose troupe was per- forming The Farm Show in Holmesville. Keith talked to Paul about the Blyth, hall and its potential as a theatre. When Paul went to see the building, he too was impressed by its potential. He decided to tour The Farm Show in 1973 and also decided that one of the places he would stage it would be the Blyth hall. The Farm Show was performed in the basement of the Blyth halt and for the next couple of summers, there was lots of talk about putting on other plays there. Blyth town council, in its wisdom, finally decided to spend some money on the hall and the roof was fixed in the spring of 1975. The council spent money to fix it not only for theatre but as a memorial to those soldiers from the area who had died during the war. ' "They (council) were always wondering if they had done the right thing by spending all that money," says Keith. James Roy had just graduated from the theatre program at York University in 1975. He had done some work for Theatre Passe Muraille in the winter. He men- tioned to Paul Thompson that he would like to have his own theatre and Paul told him about Keith Roulston and the Blyth hall. Keith had given up on the -idea of- summer theatre for 1975 when he got the call frdm James asking if could come to Blyth and look at the hall. What James saw in Blyth, encouraged him. He and Keith made enquiries about renting the hall, rounded up a Board of Directors and got a $2,500 grant from the Arts Council. James wanted to do something local at the hall that Summer and picked Mostly in Clover from a book written by St. Augustine native, Harry Boyle. "I thought he was crazy to pick something .that wasn't even scripted when we had so little time. But Mostly in Clover set the theme for the whole future of the Festival. Just to be safe that season, James had also picked Agatha Christie's Mousetrap (an internationally known play) but Mostly In Clover outsold it by nearly two to one," ex- claims Keith. It was obvious from that first season that the people in the area were hungry for local theatre featuring localized plays and so the Blyth Festival was born with James Roy as artistic director. KEITH'S FIRST PLAY FOR BLYTH About a month before James Roy arrived in Blyth, Keith had started to write his play, The Shortest Distance Bet- ween Two Points, a comedy about the problems caused in a small town when the government decides to run a highway through it. The basic theme was the little guys vs. the big guys. "I had only written about half the script when have it to Steve Thorne, an actor, writer and director with the Festival that first year. He liked it and gave me the en- couragement to finish showedit to James and he scheduled it for two seasons–away. I 'rewrote it. I must have had four or five drafts of it altogether," says Keith. The Shortest Distance Between Two Points was the last play to'be staged in the 1977 season of the Blyth Festival. There had been a few casting problems with it and Keith says he was "nervous as heck" to see it performed.. However, that play's six tail end performances averaged the highest attendance per performance at the Festival that year which made Keith feel good. The Shortest Distance • • has now been published and has been performed by a Little Theatre group in Pembroke. MORE PLAYS In 1976 James • Ropy commissioned Keith to write another play to be scheduled for the Festival in 1978. This time he came up with His Own Boss, a comedy about the frustrations of owning one's own small business. Keith says, like the Shortest Distance theme of small town vs. big government, His Own Boss has a theme of small business vs. the world. He wrote the play because he felt there was a general lack of understanding by the public of small businessmen. "I always thought all businessmen were rich myself until I met a few of them and learned that they were just people like everyone else," Keith admits. His Own Boss features Howard Hopewell, a man who inherits his uncle's cheese factory.:.and all the problems that go along with it. It is now in the process of being published. His Own Boss was staged last year at the Fesitval and Keith wasn't suppose to write a play for this year's Festival but James Roy asked him to. dome up with a scenario for McGillicuddy's Diary, the name given to a column in' the Village Squire written by Keith about a small town police chief's problems with town council, govern- ment cutbacks and people who think they, know better than he does. The column is really a satire on a- small town, explains Keith. James. read the column and suggested the theme behind it for a play. Keith's scenario or scene by -scene synopsis for McGillicuddy's Diary turned out to be 14 pages long and was turned into the play, McGillicuddy's Lost Weekend which opens at the Festival on July 29. Audiences are encouraged to come and see the play with the following -description -in -a Festival brochure: "Follow the misad- ventures of Ezekial McGillicuddy as he seeks to escape from the pressures of his duties as sole guardian of the law in Hamhocks, Ontario. Keith Roulston, author of His Own Boss and The Shortest Distance Bet- ween Two Points, has done it again! Join us for more of the ingenious antics and light-hearted satire that, for two seasns, has left audiences helpless with laughter. Ever championing the cause of the small man, , Mr. Roulston continues to aim his sharp -edged wit at the absurdities of -human nature. He emerges with a play that is sure to leave you and your family nodding with a wry smile of recognition." Keith says he hopes he is improving as a playwright. He found McGillicuddy's Lost Weekend easier to write than his previous two plays. In fact, he wrote 60 pages of it in five days. The important thing about writing plays, he has discovered, is getting to know your characters and all the intimate details about them. You have to know how they would react and what they would say in all situations. Writing a play is totally different than writing a newspaper article, ex- plains Keith. A play is all dialogue and you always have to be thinking ahead about how the next character will respond to what is being said, he continues. Keith claims that rehearsals are the har- dest part of creating_ a play -because you have several actors and a director questioning every word you've written. He found rehearsals for his first play at Blyth, par- ticularly difficult. "The actors didn't exactly trust me because I was an amateur. They weren't country people and they didn't think a lot of the lines in the play that were meant for country people would work. When the audience responded to things they didn't expect them to, it threw them off," he explains. One of the nicest things about writing plays, says Keith, is getting the immediate reaction from the audience about what you've written. He finds himself watching the faces in the audience for their responses more than he watches the plays themselves. With newspaper or magazine writing it's different. You may get the odd com- pliment here and there but it's not the same, explains Keith. Although Keith's bent in writing has always been creatiya, he got into the newspaper business because it seemed to be ' the only wa' to make a living by wrung. "There's riot a lot of money in writing plays," he says. s, He's suppose to get royalties every time one of his plays is performed but he has no way of knowing where or when they are being per- formed, if at all. Royalties for some famous playwrights are just like pension plans, he explains. The authors can still bring in Money from their plays even though they've stopped writing. Keith dreams of one day "striking' it" with one of his plays. But he's not optimistic, saying that rarely happens in Canada. "If only I could get one ALVIN'S.T.y. Your Headquarters for • TV OWER INSTALLATIONS, REPA IR & SERVICE *DELHI & CTi'AN EL MASTER' * TOWERS, ANTENNAS & BOOSTERS •SHARP COLOUR TV • MIDLAND C.B. ALVIN'S T.V. 162 MARY ST. 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