Blyth Festival 2025: For Artistic Director Gil Garratt, the future starts now
BY SHAWN LOUGHLIN
After marking so many milestones last year - the 50th anniversary of the Blyth Festival, his 10th year at the helm and the return of The Farm Show to Huron County chief among them - it’s back to business as usual for Artistic Director Gil Garratt.
That business as usual, of course, is producing Canadian plays of the highest calibre in Blyth, both indoors at Memorial Hall and outdoors on the new Harvest Stage. And this season’s offerings, with nearly every story taking place decades ago (in some cases, generations), all have a distinct relevance in today’s world, despite the stories initially playing out so long ago. It’s difficult to predict this kind of prescience, especially when so often theatre seasons are programmed years in advance, and yet the Blyth Festival has struck gold in that respect, tackling issues of immigration, changing community, pacifism in times of war, the way we communicate and the ever-changing perspective of our national identity.
Garratt, however, is just happy to be telling great stories and working with talented artists in a season he feels truly waves the flag. Amid a renewed sense of national identity and an interest in all things Canadian, Garratt is here to remind everyone that this is what the Festival has been doing for 51 years now. And, as he stated so often during last year’s golden anniversary season, thinking about the 50 years that lie ahead is just as important, perhaps even more important, than looking back at the past 50 years. Those next 50 years begin with the 2025 season.
And Garratt says it’s a great time to be having these conversations and he’s hoping that the Blyth Festival can play a role in facilitating them or at least getting the ball rolling among those in the community.
From an internal perspective, Garratt says he feels like the Festival is in a good place right now. Things have stabilized in the years following the uncertainty of the pandemic and, for the first time since then, the Festival is seeing theatre professionals return for multiple years in a row, another pillar of stability upon which the Festival can build. As an artistic director, that’s a weight off of Garratt’s shoulders, knowing that, with few exceptions, positions will be filled by known, trusted employees season after season. At the very least, it’s one less thing for him to worry about.
When he announced the season months ago, there was a conscious reflection on all that the 50th anniversary celebration brought about. It’s no coincidence that there are plays written by two of the Festival’s three founders being produced this season: Anne Chislett’s Quiet in the Land and Keith Roulston’s Powers and Gloria. There is also a look at the Canadian identity itself with Sir. John A.: Acts of a Gentrified Ojibway Rebellion, a fresh take on immigration that dates all the way back to the 1800s with The Wind Coming Over The Sea and at once an examination of a local hero and a reflection of the music and media of this area with Radio Town: The Doc Cruickshank Story.
And while Garratt has orchestrated the season, he’ll also be hard at work directing Emma Donoghue’s The Wind Coming Over The Sea. After meeting the lauded author and Academy Award nominee, finding out she has been quietly attending and supporting the Blyth Festival since the early 2000s, and convincing her to write a play for the Festival (which apparently took very little convincing at all), Garratt said he and Donoghue got on like a house on fire, so it only made sense that they put their heads together for this show.
Because our conversation took place late into the rehearsal process, Garratt had a few weeks under his belt with the season’s actors and said they were going well. Furthermore, having Donoghue in Blyth for what she described as “three heavenly days” of rehearsals was truly a blessing and a fantastic opportunity for the actors to meet Donoghue and talk through the story with her. At once, many of the actors are huge fans and couldn’t believe their luck in being able to work with one of their favourite authors, while Donoghue, who is highly decorated and widely celebrated, says that having one of her plays produced by the Blyth Festival is truly one of the highlights of her life.
As for the season as a whole, Garratt hopes it will be thought-provoking and lead to some interesting discussions about theatre, Canada, the stories then and how they affect us now.
However, at its core, the season is all about telling our stories at a time when the Canadian identity is being questioned and the role that the Blyth Festival plays in telling those stories today and the role it has filled in telling those stories over the past half-century.