Blyth Festival 2025: After years on stage, Nicholsen will direct 'Radio Town'
BY SCOTT STEPHENSON
In selecting a director for the world premiere of Nathan Howe’s new play, Radio Town: The Doc Cruickshank Story, Blyth could do no better than Festival veteran J.D. Nicholsen. Luckily, Nicholsen himself couldn’t agree more.
After all, he’s already well-versed on the subject of Wingham’s mighty little radio station - back in 1996, he was one of the stars of Paul Thompson’s Barn Dance Live!, which told the tale of CKNX’s beloved Barn Dance programming. It was an experience that Nicholsen firmly believes changed the trajectory of his life, forever. “Paul Thompson had this crazy idea to discover these stories, and put them out there,” he recalled. “And then I found out the story - I mean, I’d never heard of CKNX, or Doc Cruickshank, or any of that kind of stuff… I’d been in Toronto for about 12 years and still hadn’t heard of it. And when I did hear the story of Doc, and how he put this whole thing together, I was quite blown away! You know, 40,000 people attended an IPM to see country music - I thought that was remarkable fact number one. And then, the fact that they just sent this through the phone lines to the radio station - I just thought that was incredible! So I was very excited to get back to this story.”
Once he learned about CKNX Barn Dance, Nicholsen was all in. “It changed my life, really,” he declared. “I mean, in ‘96, when Paul asked me to be part of Barn Dance Live!, I’d given up playing guitar, for the most part. I was concentrating on the sound design and acting and film work and all that kind of stuff. I’d pretty much given up on being a live musician, and then it showed me exactly what I was capable of, in terms of being an actor and a musician, and how the two can combine together to create really engaging theatre… it really changed the trajectory of what I was working towards. I was very confused in the ‘90s as to whether I was an actor or a musician, and I decided that I was an actor. And then Barn Dance Live! really said, ‘No, man! You are both, and you can do both, together.”
Barn Dance also helped Nicholsen reconnect with his own personal history. “My father was a steel guitar player, back in the day. He played with all the greats across Canada, and some of the Americans, like Ray Price and Hank Williams, and all that stuff,” he told The Citizen. “So I grew up listening to country music. But, as a teenager, then going to college, then moving to Toronto, I’d pretty much forgotten all of my country roots. But, post-Barn Dance!, I was so enthralled with the music that we were playing, and the harmonies, and the rhythm. The lyrics are really poetic. And I just developed this new love for country music. As a result, I’ve formed two country bands over the years, I’ve been in a lot of plays that require my musical abilities, and now, I search them out.”
Radio Town tells the story of Cruickshank’s meteoric rise as a rural media mogul. “We follow Doc from his humble beginnings to the creation of his media empire,” Nicholsen explained. “He managed, with the help of his community, to take what started out as a bit of a joke in his little electronic shop, and turn it into a TV station with wide coverage - from two watts to 10, 000 watts. We follow that arc... it explores the journey of how he came to be, and all the people that were involved.”
Of course, telling the story of CKNX isn’t a simple task. “It’s a big story, so to condense that into two hours is a challenge, to say the least,” he said. “But I think Nathan’s done a really great job of capturing the essence of the man,” he remarked. “There’s lots of really great music in it, and there’s some funny stuff in there, and some quite moving stuff…. The challenge, for me, is - traffic! This is a really big show - we cover a lot of ground, a lot of different locations, and timeframes. We’ve got musicians, instruments, and technical equipment on stage. So that, to me, is probably going to be the most challenging part about it - just keeping track of where everybody is, and who’s available for what, and where everything goes. We don’t want anybody running into each other on stage, and I think this piece has the potential to have that happen.”
All the musical instruments may complicate the production, but Nicholsen wouldn’t think of trying to tell the story of Cruickshank without them. “Without the music, CKNX would have had a life, I believe, but not the life that it enjoyed - Barn Dance brought people together from all over the county,” he explained. “Music was a very, very big part of the reach of the radio station - people tuning in on Saturday nights to listen to the first old time country radio in Ontario.”
Luckily, one of last year’s productions has given Nicholsen new insight on the issue. “When we did The Trials of Maggie Pollock last year, there was a lot of stuff to move around - lots of different character pieces, and costume pieces and different looks. And that was a bit of a traffic nightmare at times as well, so I learned a lot doing that piece, about how it can work, and how actually exciting it can be. I’m looking forward to taking some of what I learned from that piece, and bringing it to Radio Town,” he explained.
If all that’s not enough to convince you that Nicholsen is qualified to direct the Doc Cruickshank story, he also has a lifelong fascination with radios themselves - just like Doc himself! “I remember, when I was about 11 years old, my parents bought me a crystal radio set,” he recollected. “This was a little kit you got, and you put it together with all these little pieces, and your resistors, and diodes, capacitors, and the coil, and you put your little earphone in, and you would listen and try to dial into a radio station. And I thought - this isn’t going to work, because there’s no electricity in this thing, right? It was just a receiver - you didn’t plug it in, there were no batteries. And when I heard I actually tuned in a radio station, I kind of felt like I was on the Planet of the Apes, communicating with another planet, almost.”
Working with Howe has also been a big highlight for Nicholsen. “It’s engaging, it’s exciting, and I love the going back and forth!” he exclaimed. “And that collaboration is just, well, it’s invaluable. I learn so much every time I talk to Nathan! Not only about writing, but about what I know, and what I don’t know, what I understand, and what I don’t understand, and the things that I miss as an actor. It’s been very enlightening.”
Nicholsen also believes that some of the world leaders of today could learn a thing or two from the story of Cruickshank. “He’s about bringing people together and giving them a voice,” he declared. “For something like this to happen, in a town of 3,000 at the time - I think that speaks a lot to the Canadian spirit, and how we pull together. We tend to support one another, and I think that is the essence of Doc… I know a lot of the old-timers are gonna really enjoy it, and seeing these old characters again, and getting back to the music, and all of that. I think some of the younger people might be surprised at what actually transpired - there are a lot of people who just don’t know the story!”
He feels privileged to be at the helm of a Blyth Festival original that tells a story so close to the hearts of Huron County audience members. “Every single year, they come up with new Canadian works that speak to the community, that reflect Canadian heritage, and rural concerns. We don’t get a lot of shows that speak to the rural community, and the rural community is such a big part of who we are as a nation. It’s just a really important voice,” he pointed out. “And Blyth does it every season - they bring a local story, so that the community can see themselves on stage, and better understand themselves, and learn a bit more about each other.”
Perhaps it’s something in the soil, but Nicholsen finds that being in Huron County helps him fully engage with the creative process. “I just love it,” he said. “When I’m in Blyth, I’m there, 24 hours a day. I don’t do anything else, except work on my lines, work on the music, talk to other people about what I’m doing, what they’re doing, seeing the plays that they put on, and engaging with the community. Back in the day, I used to go to some of those church dinners, to meet people from the community and listen to how they view the Festival, and about how important it is to them. It was just like family - you just realized that you’re part of something a lot bigger than yourself and your career. It’s changed my perspective of what theatre is capable of.”