Loading...
The Citizen, 2004-06-16, Page 5 — 992 APOTBEEARY Your Village Pharmacy SERVICES WE PROVIDE • Full prescription services • Assistance in selecting non- prescription over-the-counter medications • Verbal or written information regarding your medications, herbal products and/or specific diseases • A private consulting room • 10% Senior's Discount every Tuesday on non-prescription items • FREE blood pressure testing during regular business hours Free local delivery Dan Taylor BSc. Pharm. 523-4210 For emergencies only call 482-9475 ELLIOTT NIXON INSURANCE BROKERS INC. General Established 1910 Life Congratulations to the Blyth Festival on its 30th season! A warm welcome to all our summer visitors 405 Queen Street (519) 523-4481 Blyth, ON NOM 1H0 Fax: (519) 523-9189 Cottagers & Campers! Cook at home pizza NO TAX • Subs * Salads * Soups Blyth -- 523-4303 Wingham - 357-3400 BLYTH FESTIVAL SALUTE, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 16, 2004. PAGE 5 Festival season offers plenty of variety The Blyth Festival has six plays in its 30th anniversary season offering a remount of one of the biggest hits ever, a new production of one of the classics of Canadian theatre, a hilarious French-Canadian bedroom farce plus three world premieres. The Outdoor Donnellys: Already a sold out hit for two seasons, The Outdoor Donnellys returns after a year Off to let community cast members have a regular life for one summer. The huge show, which takes place in various sites around Blyth, culminates with the grand finale at the grandstand at the • Blyth fairgrounds at dusk each. night. To tell this sprawling story not only is a large cast of professional actors and musicians employed. but vignettes from the Donnelly history are performed by community members and the professional company at various locations in the village. Audience members are transported to the various -locations by tractor and wagon. Director Paul Thompson says "It is a rare experience to work on a compelling piece of theatre on the scale of The Outdoor Donnellys. Stories. like this one of the Donnellys. remind us of the deep passions and driving ambitions that have shaped life in our part of the Country." Thompson began his theatre connections with this part of Ontario with the ground-breaking The Farm Show in 1972.. Since then he has created a local and a national body of work that has been rarely equalled. This approach has taken him to all parts of Canada as well as to a number of international venues. He has helped to create over 40 original plays including 1837: The Farmers Revolt. Maggie and Pierre. I Love You Baby Blue, He Won't Come In From the Barn, Barndance Live!, The Death of the Hired Man, and Hippie. Other recent work includes The Art Show by Alannis King for Native Earth, a First Nations theatre company; a play with his daughter Severn about the SARS epidemic which they presented in Hong Kong; and a wild adventure piece, The Georgian Expedition, that took him and his actors to the other side of Turkey. Heat Wave: Michel Marc Bouchard's saucy bedroom farce Heat Wave opens the indoor part of the season at Memorial Hall. Festival favourite Janet Amos stars as Giselle who seems to have found a perfect romantic match, except that he may not meet the approval of her children because he's younger than they are. How does this adventurous widow hold on - to her new love while trying to hide it from meddling neighbours and offspring? Bouchard, born in Lac St-Jean, Quebec in 1958. has :authored more than 20 plays. His works performed on four continents have been translated and published in ten languages. The author's first public success was Les Feluenes ou la Repetition d'un drame mmantique (Lilies) directed by Andre Brassard. Other highly acclaitned plays by the author include Le.s Muses Orphelines (The Orphan Muses), Le Voyage du Couronnement (The Coronation Voyage) and Le Chemth des Passes-Dangereuses (Down Dangerous-Passes Road). In Canada, Michel Marc Bouchard is the recipient of a Dora Mayor Moore Award, several Chalmers Awards, le Journal de Montreal Award •for Literary Excellence and the National Arts Centre Award (Governor General's Award for performing arts). Three of his works were adapted for the' screen : Lilies, The Tale of Teeka and The Orphan Muses. The author was recently awarded, in Italy. the Premio Candoni Arta Terme for his most recent theatre work Le Peintre des -Madones ou La Naissance d'un tableau (II Pittore du madone o Nascita di un quadro). Salt-Water Moon: • Jacob Mercer is only 18 in this earliest of the Mercer family stories. He has returned from Toronto to his home town of Coley's Point Newfoundland to woo the beautiful Mary Snow, but he finds she is betrothed to the wealthy Jerome Mackenzie who can provide her with security he can't promise. —The story of the Mercer family feels so recognizable to me," says director John Jarvis. "Not my family exactly but more the greater human family. Its members are in constant flux, battling and colliding headlong into each other." The starring roles in Salt-Water Moon bring young actors Charlotte Gowdy and Darren Keay to the Blyth stage. Spirit of the Narrows: In the mid-80s, Anne Lederman went to Ebb and Flow, Manitoba, to record Native and Metis fiddlers. While making those historic recordings, she entered a world very different from her own. A renowned fiddler in her own right, Lederman pays tribute to the old fiddling traditions in Spirit of the Narrows. Although gritty at times, Spirit of the Narrows -is alive with humour, insight and respect. It is both a personal journey, and a tribute to the people and the music she came to know. "I have been blessed with some wonderful experiences in my life, times shared with people who were willing to give of their lives and their music, though they didn't know me from a fencepost," Lederman says. "To all these people I owe a debt which I can only hope to repay by paying attention to what they offered me. "Spirit of the Narrows is my way of paying attention." She is joined in this production by young Blyth native, actress and fiddler, Capucine Onn. The show is directed by Gil Garratt. Cricket and Claudette: Set in the unlikely loca ion of a small town's landfill site (less politely called a dump), Ted Johns' newest play, Cricket and Claudette combines love and politics. Festival favourites Jerry Franken and Janet Amos star in this comedy with its two love stories, one young love and one mature love. mixed in are plenty of Johns' usual hilarious observations on the absurdities of politics and rural life. The most produced playwright in the Festival's history, Huron County native Johns has delighted audiences with such hits as He Won't Come In From The Barn. The School Sholi Garrison's Garage., Country Hearts and Barnboozled. TEST DRIVE: The history of an era and a family is told in the story of Earl Hughes who starts out selling Nash cars and finds many adventures throughout a life many might think was -unsurprising. Test Drive began as a popular, and award-winning CBC Radio series, which starred Gordon Pinsent. Carley. who began his professional career as a 'playwright at a Blyth Festival playwrights- workshop in the dead of winter, 1985, has been working with Festival Artistic Director Eric Coates to adapt the show into a stage play. Coates will star as Earl and top Canadian actress Jane Spidell, who appeared in Yesteryear and Thirteen Hands in 1998 will return to play Earl's wife. The play will be directed by Miles Potter who has directed or acted for all of the major theatres across Canada. His directing credit's include the highly acclaimed productions of Romeo and Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew and Medea for the Stratford Festival, Man of Destiny for the Shaw Festival and the original production and national tour of The Drawer Boy. Miles has directed numerous productions for the Blyth Festival including Jake's Place, Another Season's Promise and I'll Be Back Before Midnight. Carley has a busy career these dayS. His adaptation of Margaret Atwood's novel The Edible Woman is currently being staged in theatres across Canada and the USA and his drama thrhidelirium premiered this past spring in New York City. His Al Purdy at the Quince Hotel premieres this July at the Regent Theatre in Picton. Cangtatatatiana to die .934th. 3-eatictat an tlieit 30" 4eactan (tarn Luann,s Country Flowers & Gifts Fresh and Silk Flowers & Plants • Garden Accessories • Home Decor • Country to Victorian • Christmas Galore (starts mid Aug.1 A FULL SERVICE FLORIST Open 6 Days a week 9-5:30 Before Theatre on Wed., Thurs., Fri. & Sat. open WI 8 409 Queen St., Blyth 45K(,)_, 519-523-4440 F Ft 527-0120 .teamvincent.c t on the me Bey ant ow are ner she see 3ey ays ich me the aul vid fail cal ace nal il's is a ent so len to t of >art c's MM.