Blyth Festival 2025: Chislett's Canadian classic returns home to Blyth

BY SHAWN LOUGHLIN

One never knows what will make a hit play - a play that truly resonates with audiences all over the world - not even Anne Chislett, who has written one such play. If she knew, she said, she would have done it again and again.

 

Chislett is a renowned playwright, a former teacher and a co-founder of the Blyth Festival - alongside James Roy and Keith Roulston - but this season her name will ring out as the playwright who penned Quiet in the Land, a tender, contemplative story about an Amish family’s world being turned upside down by its son’s decision to enlist in the forces to win World War I. The show premiered at the Blyth Festival in 1981 and was remounted at the Festival in 1982 and 1997 before its 2025 return. It also has been produced at the Toronto Free Theatre in 1982, the Centaur Theatre in 2003 and the Stratford Festival also in 2003, among others.

 

It would go on to win the prestigious Chalmers Award in 1982 and the Governor General’s Award in 1983 on its way to becoming one of the most widely produced and celebrated Canadian plays ever written. Indeed, in the foreword to the published play, theatre legend Janet Amos, who was the artistic director when the play premiered and who indeed commissioned the play in the first place, said it was a “phenomenal success” for the Blyth Festival.

 

Chislett said the show coincided, for some, with the arrival of Mennonite and Amish communities in Huron County and she sought to familiarize existing residents with their new neighbours, though they dressed differently, adhered to some different rules and largely kept to themselves. Chislett and Amos put their heads together and Chislett got to work writing what would become Quiet in the Land.

 

First, however, she had to learn, which she said was the most fascinating aspect of the process. Meeting with Amish and Mennonite families and getting to know them, after some initial reticence, truly made the play what it is, she said.

 

Once she was ready to get writing, she fleshed out the families and folded in the all-important aspect of pacifism into the story, a core tenet to living as part of an old-order Mennonite or Amish community. The conflict that is central to the story then picks at the roles that family, religion and community all play in so many scenarios, no matter the setting.

 

From there, the play caught fire, being produced all over Canada and even in New York and Japan. Chislett said that she could only write what she could write and hope that it would resonate with audiences. She had no inkling that Quiet in the Land would connect as it did and she laments that she can’t put her finger on the ingredient that made it special; if she could, she would have done it again.

 

For Chislett, it all began in Grade 6. She attended a convent school and, in a time-honoured tradition that has led to many people unexpectedly finding their callings, she took advantage of the time away from class that putting on plays afforded the students. If students wanted to perform a play for the administration and they found it entertaining enough, a bit of time away from classes was granted. Chislett sought the time off, but found that she had a knack for connecting with her audience, even back then.
In addition, when she was growing up in St. John’s, Newfoundland in the late 1950s, a travelling theatre company made its way to the island to perform. She connected with some of the professionals and decided to study theatre on the complete opposite end of the country - the University of British Columbia - in the hopes of turning that passion into a career.

 

She eventually made her way to Ontario, met James Roy and not long after that, the Blyth Festival was born. Chislett was there in the early days of the Festival when an adaptation of the writings of St. Augustine’s Harry J. Boyle called Mostly in Clover wildly outsold the sure thing of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap in that first season, giving the Festival its mandate before it knew it needed one.

 

Chislett’s first Blyth Festival playwriting credit would be in the third season - 1977 - the same year that fellow founder Keith Roulston had his first play on the Festival stage. That year, Chislett penned A Summer Burning, adapted from Boyle’s work once again. Then, in quick succession, came Quiet in the Land and The Tomorrow Box, both in the 1981 season. Both would be remounted again and again: Quiet in the Land in 1982, 1997 and now in 2025 and The Tomorrow Box in 1983 and 1995.
Chislett would then strike a familiar partnership with Roulston, together writing Another Season’s Promise in 1986 - the show was remounted again in 1987 - and Another Season’s Harvest in 2006. Yankee Notions in 1992, Glengarry School Days in 1994 and The Perilous Pirate’s Daughter (with David Archibald) in 2003 would all follow as well.

 

Furthermore, Chislett would take her turn as artistic director of the Blyth Festival from 1998 to 2002, giving way to Eric Coates, who took over in 2003.