Village Squire, 1980-02, Page 25PEOPLE
NICHOLSON HEADS PERTH
HISTORICAL
Tim Nicholson of R.R. 2, West Monkton
was recently re-elected for his second term
as chairman of the Perth County Historical
Board.
Vice-chairman Art Horne of North
Easthope Township was also re-elected
and Tom Wilcox was named to represent
the City of Stratford on the board.
A director was also hired for the Minnie
Thomson Memorial Museum but at that
person's request the name was not to be
released for a couple of weeks.
Following an agreement on the purchase
of Fryfogel Inn and the Thomson Museum
between Stratford and Perth County the
board decided to advertise for a director
whose responsibility it will be to draw up a
philosophy and a working plan for the
museum.
According to Nicholson, the board will
be calling for tenders for the restoration of
the Fryfogel Inn by the end of January or
zarly in February. The inn is expected to
re -open in the summer.
Also being considered is a companion
volume to the Canada Company history
book which was published last year. That
book has been a success and is almost sold
out. The new volume would deal with the
area involving towns and townships in the
northern part of Perth County.
A NEW HOME
Ken Livingston's Centre Stage has found
a new home at Theatre London's McManus
Studio.
Formerly the troupe was located in the
City Centre mall but was pushed out of it
and other theatres due to a lack of finances.
Centre Stage will open its season with
The Woods by Chicago playwright David
Mamet, whose play American Buffalo was
Livingstone's biggest hit last year. The
Woods will run from Feb. 21 till March 8.
A new wave rock opera by Toronto
composer John Mills Cockell is being
written for a March opening, to be followed
in April by the Arthur Kopit play Wings
which will star Frances Hyland.
The rock opera which has the working
title Terrorist Tropicale is a co -production
between Centre Stage and a Toronto group
backing composer Cockell. The story
concerns a would-be nightclub singer in a
banana republic who becomes embroiled in
revolutionary politics. The March dates are
still tentative depending on location.
In Wings, Frances Hyland will play a
retired stunt flier and wing -walker who
suffers a severe stroke and relives her
exhilarating past during the trauma of her
painful recovery.
Wings, whose creator Arthur Kopit also
wrote Indians, the historical fantasy about
the wild west and Buffalo Bill which
Livingstone directed in 1973 at the Gallery
Theatre, runs from April 18 till May 3.
DINAH CHRISTIE FARMS
Dinah Christie who has a Superspecial
coming up on the CBC network on March 9
is a well-known Canadian actress and
singer but she has another vocation
besides. In her spare time she operates a
300 acre farm near Mount Forest where
she keeps horses, geese, ducks, chickens,
cats and Dalmatians. She pitches hay,
shovels manure and scatters seed.
She is the daughter of thespians Robert
and Margot Christie and began her career
at the Shakespearean Festival in Sratford
at the age of 13, where she alerted actors
like Christopher Plummer, William Shat-
ner and Lorne Greene that it was their time
to go on stage.
For about a decade until a split in 1974,
Dinah and Tom Kneebone were on the
cabaret circuit in Toronto, across Canada
and in the eastern U.S. After their
parting, she formed a company called
Dinah Christie And Friends which includes
Dinah and four professional musicians,
Mark Rutherford, Don Horsburgh, Norm
Villeneuve and Billy Prosser.
INDEPENDENCE FOR ALFIE
Alfie Dale of Seaforth, who 14 years ago
was paralyzed from the neck down after
damaging his spine diving into a lake
outside Owen Sound, is enjoying a new
form of independence thanks to the March
of Dimes.
That new independence comes from a
touch operated select and control unit knowi
cimpiv ac a TOSC 11. Now Alfie can make
phone calls, operate a T.V. and Radio,
control his ham radio set, open the front
door, turn lights on and off, and run an
intercom, simply by touching a single
switch with his chin.
To make a phone call he touches a switch
which automatically sends the unit through
the various functions.. When he reaches
the telephone function, he removes his
chin from the switch and touches another
part of it.
He then holds his chin there. and counts
the beeps until he reaches the correct
number. Then he removes his chin and
starts on the next number.
1980 PLAYERS NAMED
The Stratford Festival has announced
some of its selections of plays, actors and
actresses for the 1980 season.
Robin Phillips will be directing Shake-
speare's comedy Much Ado About Nothing
which will star Brian Bedford and Maggie
Smith as the reluctant lovers Benedick and
Beatrice. Set design will be done by
Daphne Dare with costumes by Robin
Fraser Paye whose previous work for
Stratford included the 1979 Othello and the
1977-78 As You Like It. Music for this
production will be composed by Louis
Applebaum.
Other performers in Much Ado About
Nothing will include Richard Curnock as
Dogberry and Barry MacGregor as Verges.
Max Helpmann will appear as Leonato and
Mervyn Blake enters his twenty-third
consecutive year with the Festival,
appearing as Antonio in this production.
The role of Don Pedro will be played by
Jim McQueen and Nicholas Pennell will
perform the role of Don John, the villain of
the piece. Diana LeBlanc and Stephen
Russell are cast as Hero and Claudio. the
young lovers who become the victims of
Don John's plot.
Donna Goodhand will portray Margaret
and Alicia Jeffery will portray Ursula in the
production. David Dunbar as Balthasar,
Joel Kenyon as Friar Francis ani John
Wojda will also join the cast of Much Ado
About Nothing.
Some well-known names such as Brian
Isedford, Pat Galloway, William Hutt,
Richard McMillan, Jim McQueen and
Kate Reid will head up the Stratford
Festival's 1980 production of Twelfth
Night.
Artistic Director of the Festival, Robin
Phillips, will direct this production which
will have set design by Daphne Dare and
costumes by Ann Curtis. Although this is
her first Stratford assignment,Miss Curtis
is well known in England for her many
productions for the RSC and the National
Theatre. Music for Twelfth. Night will be
composed by Berthold Carriere with
lighting by Michael J. Whitfield.
Hutt, who will appear as Feste in the
production, marks the beginning of his
twenty-fifth year with the Festival. Bedford
will appear as Malvolio and returning for
her first engagement with the Festival
since 1970. Kate Reid will be seen as
Maria. Pat Galloway will play Olivia in
Twelfth Night.
VILLAGE SQUIRE/FEBRUARY 1980 PG. 23