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The Citizen-Blyth Festival 2002, 2002-06-05, Page 7I—Welcome to another great Theatre season.—lf Kathy Lorentz-Hare R.M.T., C.S.T. Facilitator of Healing • Registered massage therapist • Cranio-sacral therapist • Reflexology Kara Pepper R.M.T. • Registered massage therapist Blyth, Ontario NOM 1110 L 519-523-9400 by appointment -17 3rd Annual HURON COUNTY '‘ ART SHOW & SALE HURON COUNTY MUSEUM 110 North Street, Goderich AUGUST 17 - OCTOBER 7, 2002 REQUEST FOR SUBMISSIONS Submitted work must be done in watercolour, oil or acrylic, two-dimensional mixed media (on paper), pastels, inks, graphite, or charcoal and the subject matter should have some relevance to Huron County. Work must be framed for hanging. Artists must be seasonal residents or full-time residents and/or ratepayers of Huron County. Artists may also offer submitted paintings for sale. DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: AUGUST 6, 2002 - 12:00 PM Winning entries will receive purchase awards of: $1000 - 1st PRIZE $800 - 2nd PRIZE $700 - 3rd PRIZE Winning entries will become the property of the Corporation of the County of Huron and will be placed in an Art Bank for permanent display in Huron County's public buildings. For information and regulations, contact the Huron County Museum at 524-2686 or visit www.huroncountymuseum.on.ca BLYTH FESTIVAL SALUTE, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 2002. PAGE 7. New plays keep bringing Belshaw back to Blyth By Keith Roulston Citizen staff Working with new plays keeps bringing Diana Belshaw back to Blyth Festival summer after summer, she says. The director of Goodbye, Piccadilly, first came to Blyth 22 years ago to work on a new script and she's been back as an actor or director many times since.. "The attraction is definitely the new work, but not just the new work," she says. "It's a combination of the work and a particular Canadian voice that I love." Belshaw says there's also- a particular connection with the Blyth community and audience. "I like to feel part of (it) and talk to it through the work." Blyth has come to mean, for Belshaw, both the community of artists and volunteers directly involved in the Festival and the , wider community that spreads beyond the village itself. Within the theatre, there's a group of people who come together with a similar sense of what theatre should be and feel passionate about the work they create. "They love making theatre together," she says. While the term "home" gets overused, for many people in the theatre Blyth has become a home, she says. "We're such gypsies (as artists). For a lot of us we come back to Blyth because we feel like it's home." Belshaw's commitment and love of new work has made her one of Festival Artistic Director Anne Chislett's most trusted directors for premiering new plays. Her challenge this year with Goodbye, Piccadilly is slightly different than usual. Though the production will be a premiere it's not, strictly speaking, the world premiere. While Chislett worked with author Douglas Bowie to develop the script, another production opened earlier in the summer at the Thousand Islands Playhouse in Gananoque. Belshaw and Chislett attended the opening. Ordinarily, Belshaw says, she worries about seeing another production of a play she's working on because it might influence her. This time, however, the development of her Blyth production (opening July 5) was far enough along that it wasn't a problem. "Shawn (Kerwin, the show's designer) and I had completed the design process. With the conceptual work done, many decisions are irreversible." On top of the difference in the physical look of the production, you add the actors to the mix and the world of the play becomes very different, she says. Still, "It was fascinating to see another version of that world." Writer Douglas Bowie will have an unusual opportunity of seeing his work performed by two different sets of actors at two very different theatres within weeks of each other. That's an unusual situation in Canada, says Belshaw. While in the U.S. a new play may go through a development process where it's performed over a short period of time in front of different audiences, here ihCanada if a play has a second prodqction at all, it's usually a couple of years after the first performances. • Having the Blyth production rehearsed so close to the rehearsal and production in Gananoque will make it seem part of the script development continuum, Belshaw says. Knowing the situation with the double productions, one of the first things Belshaw asked, when offered the job of directing the play, was if Bowie would be willing to keep working on the script. He agreed to be on hand to make changes if she and the cast feel they're necessary during rehearsals. And he'll have a great group of actors to give feedback, Belshaw says of her cast which will includes two-time Festival Artistic Director Janet Amos, Caroline Gillis, a veteran in developing new scripts, both at the Festival and elsewhere, and Elva Mai Hoover. "They're very experienced and very demanding, in a good way," says Belshaw. They're very dedicated in developing a new work and they expect the same kind of commitment from the writer — that their input is honoured. It will also be challenging for the director, she says. They are actors who will have "their two cents worth to throw into the pot," but she looks forward to the challenge. Directing in Blyth is a summertime break from Belshaw's winter work as head of the theatre program at Humber College, an opportunity to work with veteran actors, some legends in Canadian theatre, after working with the next generation of actors at the college level. Yet the common theme is development of new work, making her summer return to professional theatre "integrally connected" with her work with young artists-to-be. The focus at Blyth is "on new plays and new theatre and that's very much what my program is about." She has developed the Humber program to focus on the creative process with the young actors writing plays and working on each other's plays. Recently students went out and interviewed residents of nearby a seniors home about their lives when they were young, then with the help of writer Stephen Bush, created a play collectively, improvising scenes until a play took shape — a sort of combination of Paul Thompson's collective creations and the Blyth tradition of telling local stories, she says. The production was so successful it will be performed at Toronto's Summerworks theatre festival this summer. Goodbye, Piccadilly is very different from Gordon Pinsent's Corner Green, which Belshaw directed last year at the Festival. That play was more edgy, this one more accessible for general audiences. "There's something at the core of the play that still makes me weep," she says, of Goodbye, Piccadilly. "It's how strongly Doug (Bowie) has written about the idea of tainily: what is family, how do we create our families — because sometimes families aren't biological but families we choose. It's a case of love between family members that binds them together. He has written some amazing moments because they're so true." Lest she give the impression that it's a sad play, Belshaw quickly adds that the play is very funny: "A combination of a glorious sense of humour and a sense of truth." "It's the kind of play I love."