A tough loss - Shawn's Sense with Shawn Loughlin
When the time came to prepare a special issue for the 50th season of the Blyth Festival, we chose to focus on the founders and the Artistic Directors to keep things simple. We’d made an early story list that was sprawling, unwieldy and impossible to complete (or print in anything smaller than a book), so it was Publisher Deb Sholdice (who, herself, spent many years as a volunteer - and eventually as the General Manager - of the Festival) who suggested narrowing our focus. By telling the stories of the Artistic Directors, the story of the Festival was broken into eras (that was the summer of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, you’ll remember) and we were able to tell all the stories we wanted to tell, just in a better way.
What we were lucky to discover (although we already knew, but hadn’t put together) was that all of the major players in the Blyth Festival story were still with us. The three founders - James Roy, Anne Chislett and Keith Roulston - and all of the Artistic Directors - Janet Amos, Katherine Kaszas, Peter Smith, Eric Coates, Marion de Vries and Gil Garratt, as well as Roy and Chislett, who did double duty from 1975 to 1979 and 1998 to 2002, respectively - had lived to tell the tale and were more than willing to share it with our readers. Too often those stories are relegated to the yellowing pages of old newspapers or history books. To be able to ask questions, interact with the people who were there, making those decisions, and learn about an era aside from our own was such a treat and just how special that was came through in those pages.
It was with sadness then that we heard the news that Katherine Kaszas had passed away last month. The runs of Amos from 1979 to 1984 and Kaszas from 1985 to 1991 were among the most successful in the Festival’s history, boasting tremendous attendance figures and plays whose titles remain crucial in the Canadian theatre conversation to this day.
In addition to the on-stage and box office success of Kaszas’ term was the expansion of Memorial Hall into the building we know it as today. She oversaw the south side addition to the building as well as the link between Memorial Hall and the administration building as well as improvements to the Festival’s shop and other structures.
When I interviewed Kaszas, she was the last person I was able to organize. I had been using an e-mail address she no longer used and was in England to boot. We were able to arrange a FaceTime. As I thanked her for making the time and for rearranging her stay in England for me, she insisted that she so cherished Blyth and would do whatever she could when the Blyth Festival came calling. Her legacy has lived on as well, with the Festival’s Production Manager Ryan Brink being one of her students when she was at St. Clair College. The hard-working Brink is among the Festival’s most essential employees, working ridiculous hours to ensure the success of the Festival season.
At the risk of tooting our own horn, we’re so fortunate that the 50th anniversary issue exists and can be reviewed by generations after ours to hear these stories from the horse’s mouth. It’s a reminder to have conversations when you can, as tomorrow is never guaranteed.
The impact that Kaszas and her colleagues have had not just on the Blyth Festival, but on the world of Canadian theatre - especially here at home in Ontario - is immeasurable and we are lucky to benefit from their skills, talent and hard work. Losing one of the gang is hard, but the wheel of time never stops turning. Katherine will be missed by many.