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HomeMy WebLinkAboutClinton News Record, 2016-12-07, Page 5Wednesday, December 7, 2016 • News Record 5 Blyth Festival announces 2017 season Justine Alkema Clinton News Record The 2017 Blyth Festival season has officially been announced, and Artistic Director Gil Garratt could not be more thrilled about their upcoming shows. The festival has a lot to live up to this year after an extremely successful year in 2016. The festival saw around 4000 more guests than the previous year; they had just over 19,000 guests total in their 2016 season, and 2000 of those guests had never bought a ticket from the Blyth Festival before. "That's huge," said Garratt. "That's 10% of the audience. When I started at the theatre, one important piece of advice my mentor gave me was to make sure you aren't only serving the audience you have but are also build- ing an audience. The Blyth Festival is a living, breathing place." For the 2017 season, Gar- rett said they will continue to "push boundaries, break rules, and blow our own horn to celebrate this incom- parable country. And this year, the ribbon will be cut on our $3.8 million newly renovated and ready to go Memorial Hall:' Garrett said the renova- tions to the hall are very focused on audience experi- ence and includes all new seats and a brand new stage as well as improvements to the lower hall and art gallery. LL All of the pieces for next year are incredibly inspiring, and that opens conversations, and that's what makes for exciting theatre." — Artistic Director Gil Garratt As is customary with the Blyth Festival, Garrett expressed that the plays are meant to be relevant and speak to the way life is lived in Huron County. He also mentioned how much each play in 2017 differs from each other offering a lot of variety to the audience. Three of the four upcom- ing plays are world pre- mieres, and Garrett had a lot to say about how powerful these upcoming shows will be. A Night with Guy Lom- bardo features a musician who was extremely popular, and yet would come to Sea - forth and Bayfield for shows. The writer of this show, David Scott, has been work- ing on the script for seven or eight years. As for the Pigeon King, which will include the music of a country string band on stage, Garrett said, "It's going to be huge"; this story revolves around a massive Ponzi scheme that involved tons of commu- nity members. On the final piece, Ipper- wash, about the displaced Stony Point First Nation peo- ple, Garrett said, "I know this piece will be controversial, but this is something we really have to have the courage to talk about and think about." "Something incredibly spe- cial about what the Blyth Fes- tival does is we put work on stage that nobody else on in Memorial Hall under construction in Blyth. the world has seen, and we have an amazing track record of shows beginning in Blyth that go all over the country and internationally too. It's a truly extraordinary:' The plays are deep in development at this time with commissioned writers working hard at creating the scripts. As for those acting in the plays, Garrett com- mented that there will be a return of some actors and actresses that their audience has come to recognize and love. Passes are now on sale for the 2017 season. The box office can be contact at 519.523.9300, toll free 1.877.862.5984 or online at Justine Alkema Clinton News Record blythfestival.com. If pur- chased before December 24, patrons can save up to 31% over the price of single tickets. "All of the pieces for next year are incredibly inspiring, and that opens conversa- tions, and that's what makes for exciting theatre," said Garrett. A description of each of the plays, their dates and writers are as follows: June 28 to August 19 WORLD PREMIERE MR. NEW YEAR'S EVE: A NIGHT WITH GUY LOMBARDO BY DAVID SCOTT For forty-eight consecu- tive years Guy Lombardo was North America's "Mr. New Year's Eve ; bandleader of the biggest holiday broadcast on the continent. Together with his band "The Royal Canadians," Lom- bardo sold more than 300 million records internation- ally. To this day, they still play his recording of Auld Lang Syne as the official ball drops on the annual festivi- ties in New York's Times Square. A son of Italian immi- grants, Guy was born and raised in London, Ontario, but it was his summers playing the biggest beach bandstand in Huron Coun- ty's Grand Bend, where this local musical titan cut his teeth and learned to play both his many instruments and the teeming crowds. Though his own father adamantly opposed Guy's love of Jazz, and Canadian radio stations showed active disinterest, Guy's dedica- tion to his craft was all con- suming, and no obstacle could block his path to his dreams. Friend and influen- tial colleague of some of the biggest names in show biz, including Louis Armstrong, Sophie Tucker, the Andrew Sisters, Al Jolson, Bing Crosby, and others, Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians blazed a path from Huron County to the Big Apple the likes of which has never been seen, before or since. July 5 to August 19 THE BERLIN BLUES BY DREW HAYDEN TAYLOR Two German developers arrive unannounced on the sleepy, fictional Otter Lake reserve. They have with them international investors, $164 million dol- lars, and blueprints for a "Native Theme Park; com- plete with bumper canoes, an international longhouse of pancakes, and a giant laser dream catcher. What ensues is a hilarious, laugh - a -minute riot, as some members of the community try to shut down the devel- opment, while others leap in with both feet. Full of absurd gags and indelible, larger -than -life charac- ters, The Berlin Blues is a slap down drag'em out cul- tural appropriation comedy of the highest (and lowest) order. August 9 to September 23 WORLD PREMIERE THE PIGEON KING BY THE COMPANY When Arlan Galbraith cre- ated his company, Pigeon King International, he boasted some fifty -years as a top breeder; he was a promi- nent member of the Cana- dian Racing Pigeon Union, the Canadian National Tippler Union, the National Birmingham Roller Club, and even the charter President of the Saugeen Valley Fur and Feathers Fanciers Associa- tion. When he announced he'd even bred his own dis- tinct prize winning line of racers, Strathclyde Genetics, few of his friends doubted his downy coronation. But around 2001, Gal- braith began approaching local farmers and neigh- bours asking them to invest in a piece of the royal action. Claiming to have access to lucrative pigeon racing markets in Saudi Ara- bia and throughout the Middle East, the Pigeon King began to sign ten year contracts with guaranteed profits for buyers of his breeding pairs, promising to personally buy back all of the chicks. Over the next seven years, Pigeon King International became a massive empire, worth tens of millions of dollars, with farmers invest- ing from both sides of the border, mortgaging century farms, and hatching hun- dreds of thousands of birds, only to collapse in a bank- ruptcy filing of epic propor- tions. Finally convicted of fraud in a Waterloo Court, Arlan Galbraith was sen- tenced to seven years, for his preposterous Pigeon Ponzi scheme. The Pigeon King is a country parable for our times, reminding us that what takes flight, always comes home to roost. August 16 to September 16 WORLD PREMIERE IPPERWASH BY FALEN JOHNSON & JESSICA CARMICHAEL The Blyth Centre for the Arts sits today on land sur- rendered through Treaty 29, the Huron Tract, part of the traditional territories of the People of Kettle and Stony Point. In 1942, the Government of Canada used the War Measures Act to expropriate a 2400 acre tract of land from the Stony Point First Nation; dispossessed families who lost their homes were moved into neighbouring Kettle Point, while they waited anx- iously for armistice. The Feds promised to return the land when the war was over. In 1995, after 50 years of waiting, of protests, of unpro- ductive legal appeals and demands, one infamous demonstration turned bloody, and 48 year old Dud- ley George was shot and killed by OPP officer Ken Deane. This was known as the Ipperwash Crisis, and it con- tinues to reverberate coast to coast to coast. Now, more than 20 years since Dudley's death, the land he died protesting for is being returned; On April 14, 2016, a settlement was rati- fied finally returning what remains of the land that formed Camp Ipperwash. Ipperwash is a play about the ever difficult path to change, the need for whole- ness in healing, and a com- plex country's hunger for hope.