Blyth Festival’s Deeper Roots Programming Is A Novel Addition To The Fifty Year Celebration
by Bob Montgomery
The Blyth Festival’s Deeper Roots Programming will give theatre-goers the chance to see what goes on behind the scene at the Festival.
General Manager Rachael King explains the Deeper Roots Programming digs a little deeper into the stories behind the making of the shows and how they get to the products that audiences see on the stage. The Deeper Roots Programming invites audiences from the matinee performances to join them in their Lower Hall after the show for a question and answer with some of the cast and crew and what they put into producing the product audiences see on the stage.
It starts on Wednesday with Saving Graceland, July 9th with The Golden Anniversaries, August 6th with Resort to Murder, August 17th with The Trials of Maggie Pollock and September 5th with Onion Skins and Peach Fuzz: The Farmerettes.
Most people have no idea of what goes into a production for the stage and why would they if they've never been part of it. “We have a production crew on any given week of sixteen to twenty people who are working over in the production building, building all the sets, painting them, making all the props, the costumes, all of things that people see in the finished product on stage but there is a very busy hive of humans who are making it happen behind the scene.”
They're also offering tours of the Harvest Stage on July 17th and August 28th at 11:30 am and in the Production Shop on August 10th at 11:30 am. Each tour lasts about an hour. On July 18th and August 22nd they're inviting people to stay behind in Memorial Hall to experience the magic of a changeover as they watch their stage crew flip the set from one play to another like a well-oiled machine.
Blyth Festival Director of Education Ashley Williamson will chat with a Blyth theatre expert about the making of The Farm Show: Then & Now, the design process from drawing to dress rehearsal, and provide the inside scoop on how a full season of theatre gets built. The interviews are free and will happen in the Lower Hall and are about 45 minutes in length. There's a panel discussion on Women in Agriculture on Wednesday, August 7th from 5:30 until 7:00 pm at the Huron County Museum, 110 North Street in Goderich and that's just ahead of the opening of the world premiere of Onion Skins and Peach Fuzz: The Farmerettes, by Alison Lawrence.
More information can be found on the Blyth Festival webpage.
