Village Squire, 1979-06, Page 20PEOPLE
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Aileen Taylor -Smith, a new face at the top for the 1980 season at Huron Country Playhouse.
1 wo new names will be at the top for the
Huron Country Playhouse in Grand Bend
when it opens for its 1980 season. Aileen
Taylor -Smith is a familiar face to regular
playgoers at Grand Bend having appeared
there as an actress. She was chosen from
21 applicants for the position to be artistic
director at the theatre.
To the young generation that has made
theatre a booming part of the Canadian
culture in the last decade, she's a little
more than a name. But Dora Mayor Moore
who died last month at age 91 laid the
foundation for the exciting Canadian
theatre of today. Her influence was strong
in Western Ontario through her work in
helping to have found the Stratford
Festival in 1952. It was she who helped
founder Tom Patterson get in touch with
Tyrone Guthrie who became the founding
artistic director of the Festival in the days
of the giant tent. Many of the actors in the
first company were people she had worked
with in her theatre productions in Toronto.
It was her New Play Society that also
hatched one of the great theatre traditions
of the past, the revue called Spring Thaw.
To most of his friends and neighbours he
was just a likeable man. He was just about
the last man who looked like a spy. But Bill
Taves of Port Elgin became the centre of
one of the biggest controversies in Ontario
in recent years when he leaked reports on
18 Village Squire, June 1979
safety problems at the Bruce Nuclear
Power Development to Grey -Bruce Liberal
M.P.P. Eddie Sargent. Taves, who worked
at the plant leaked the documents using
the code name Mr. Schultz, saying he was
afraid he would be fired if his real identity
were revealed. Eventually he did reveal his
real name and quit his job with Hydro.
Marc Quhm will be the general manager of
the theatre. A recent graduate of
University of Waterloo he is already
working at the theatre as director of
operations. The two will succeed James
Murphy founder of the theatre who will
leave his post at the end of his contract in
November.
Work down on the farm was a little
delayed for most people this spring and
even more so for a St. Marys area farmer.
But while most farmers were cursing toe
weather the cause of delay for Walt
Tkaczuk wasn't at all unpleasant. Instead
of working on his pig farm this spring as he
has many years in the past, Tkaczuk was
involved in the National Hockey League's
Stanley Cup playoffs with the New York
Rangers. The farming season may still
have come a little early for him as his
Rangers were beaten by Montreal in only
five games but considering the Rangers
were picked by some "experts" to be
defeated in the playoff round more than a
month earlier, it was a pretty good spring
for Tkaczuk.
It shouldn't perhaps be listed under the
people column. but there was a rather
remarkable visitor in southern Huron this
spring. A pink flamingo was spotted in a
mud and brush area near Greenway on the
Huron -Middlesex border near Grand
Bend. Its origins were a mystery since it
didn't seem to be an escapee from any local
zoo and may come from a zoo in the
northern U.S. or just have wandered all the
way from Florida.
Long years of work are already behind
her even though she's only 23 years old but
with the release of her first record recently
Gloria Hart of Mitchell could at least see
some progress in her career. The single,
recorded at the Elmira studios of The
Mercy Brothers with the help of producer
Danny Coughlan and arranger Rob
Asselstine came out in April and is the first
record she has of the talent she has honed
through years of playing bars and
weddings. to television shows at CKNX.
The hard work is far from over however.
She's put long hours into the production of
the record as well, even putting the
recordings in the sleeves after she played
each to make sure it didn't have any
scratches. She's also put in a lot of miles
taking the record to radio stations and
trying to get it played.
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TEL. 393-6660