Saving Graceland Opens At The Blyth Festival On Friday Night

by Bob Montgomery

Saving Graceland is the second play of the Blyth Festival's 2024 season and it opens on Friday June 21st.

Saving Graceland was written by Blyth Festival Artistic Director Gil Garratt, and is set in Clinton in 2019, which was the final year of the Collingwood Elvis Festival. The story follows a couple who has just recently retired. He was a career mechanic and he's sold the shop and their new life revolves around Elvis Presley, and the Canada Pension Plan, and just as they're embarking on their new life, unannounced, their eight-year-old granddaughter shows up at the door and they can't find her mother.

“And we quickly learn that this is not the first time that this has happened and the mom has some troubles and these grandparents basically have to take over raising their grandchild.” At the same time as they're embracing this second round of parenting, he has been a long-time aspiring Elvis tribute artists and has never quite had the opportunity to get up there and do his Elvis. They've been going to the Collingwood Elvis Festival since it was founded twenty-five years ago and this year there was a cancellation and Gord has been asked to fill in.

So, Gord has to work on his Elvis number at the same time as re-balancing his life and continuing to find their daughter and help her out.

The grandchild, by the way, happens to be Garratt's eight-year-old daughter who is making her Blyth Festival debut in this play.

Saving Elvis opens Friday, June 21st at the Blyth Festival.

Tickets to this, and other plays, can be purchased on the Blyth Festival website.