The Citizen, 2018-03-08, Page 20THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MARCH 8, 2018. PAGE 19.
Entertainment & Leisure
`Pigeon King' chosen for National Arts Centre season
Moving along
The Pigeon King, a collective creation that premiered as part of the Blyth Festival's 2017
season, has been chosen to be part of the National Arts Centre's 2018/2019 season. This
marks the first time a Festival production will grace the hallowed centre's stage. (TerryManzophoto)
By Shawn Loughlin
The Citizen
The Pigeon King, the 2017 Blyth
Festival collective creation, will now
be part of the 2018/2019 National
Arts Centre (NAC) English Theatre
season.
This marks the first time that a
Festival production will grace the
hallowed stage of the National Arts
Centre in Ottawa.
"This is truly a proud moment for
the Blyth Festival. This is the first
time in Blyth's history that one of
our shows, a show created and
realized on our stage, will play on
the NAC's definitive stage," said
Blyth Festival Artistic Director Gil
Garratt in a press release. "Packing
up the truck and taking our actors
across the province to mount this
play at the NAC English Theatre is a
testament to the relevance of the
plays that the Blyth Festival
produces; relevant here at home and
on a national stage."
The play tells the story of Arlan
Galbraith and Pigeon King
International, the Ponzi scheme that
shook North America and saw
families, all across Ontario and
beyond, lose millions. Festival
artists Rebecca Auerbach, Jason
Chesworth, George Meanwell, J.D.
Nicholsen, Gemma James -Smith,
Garratt and director Severn
Thompson conducted extensive
research in the months leading up to
last summer's premiere. The show
was well-received and immediately
garnered interest from theatre
companies around the country.
The Pigeon King will close the
NAC's 2018/2019 season with a run
scheduled from April 24 to May 5 at
the Babs Asper Theatre.
In an interview with The Citizen,
Garratt said that the roots of the play
making its way to Ottawa go back to
last season when Jillian Keiley, the
NAC's English Theatre artistic
director, saw the show in Blyth.
Keiley attended a show, Garratt
said, that included one of the
Festival's "talkback" sessions. When
she saw the show's engagement with
members of the public, as well as
with the agricultural community
through the talkback session, Garratt
says she was very enthusiastic about
its potential beyond Blyth.
After the show, Keiley travelled to
Bayfield with Garratt and his wife
Gemma James -Smith for dinner at
their farm and couldn't stop
complimenting the show.
Just a few weeks later, Garratt
received a call from Keiley. She said
she was seriously considering
bringing The Pigeon King to the
NAC, but didn't think it would fit
into its programming until the
2019/2020 season. However, it was
only another few weeks later that
Keiley found a spot in the theatre's
coming season and wanted it on the
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Ottawa stage as soon as possible.
Garratt began making calls in an
attempt to round up the on-stage
actors who made the show happen
last year. Luckily, everyone was
available, so Garratt said the
2018/2019 season was a possibility.
Garratt says he has been part of a
NAC production before, when he
acted in The Glace Bay Miners'
Museum as Neil Currie. However,
bringing a Festival production there
for the first time, a piece he helped to
create, is a different feeling
altogether.
He said that the theatre is an
institution and the pinnacle of
Canadian theatre, so he was beyond
honoured when he was asked to
bring a Festival production there.
Beyond that feeling of
accomplishment, however, Garratt
said that he felt the inclusion of The
Pigeon King in the NAC's season
spoke to how universal the Festival's
shows can be.
The story The Pigeon King tells,
Garratt said, really shines a light on
the best work the Festival does,
which connects both with its local
community as well as the
communities beyond Huron
County's borders.
As far as the NAC is concerned,
with its cross-country reach and
influence, Garratt said it doesn't get
any better than having the Festival's
work validated by such an
institution. With an English theatre,
a French theatre and a new
Indigenous theatre, as well as
divisions for both music and dance,
the centre really is crucial in
Canada's artistic history, Garratt
said.
The NAC English Theatre Series,
of which The Pigeon King will be a
part, aims to bring together some of
the best shows from across Canada,
according to the Festival's press
release. In the 2018/2019, many of
the stories will focus on real-life
stories and characters in an attempt
to tell the country's stories through
some of its most interesting
characters.
"The artists who constructed our
stories have looked deep, examined
the viscera and challenged the
surface assumptions. These are great
characters on the surface, however,
what goes on inside them is where
the magnificent humanity bubbles,
and where the real theatre lives,"
said Keiley.
The Theatre Series begins with
Silence, the story of the romance
between Mabel Hubbard and
Alexander Graham Bell, written by
Trina Davies and directed by former
NAC English Theatre Artistic
Director Peter Hinton.
The season's second show is The
Hockey Sweater: A Musical by Emil
Sher and Jonathan Munro, directed
and choreographed by Donna Feore.
The Wedding Party, written by
Kristen Thomson, is next, followed
by Angelique by Lorena Gale. The
Pigeon King then rounds out the
five -show season.
For more information, visit
nac-cna.ca/engli shtheatre.
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