Blyth Festival 2025: James Dallas Smith feels like he's part of the family

BY SHAWN LOUGHLIN

The 2025 season will be James Dallas Smith’s fourth with the Blyth Festival. He no longer considers himself new, but he is always grateful to come back and wishes he could spend more of his family’s time in the community the Festival calls home.

 

Smith was first a member of the Festival company in 2017 when he performed in Drew Hayden Taylor’s The Berlin Blues and Ipperwash, a play that would go on to have a second life, being produced by Native Earth Performing Arts in Toronto and directed by Falen Johnson, who also wrote the play.

 

For his next two seasons, Smith was exclusively an outdoor actor, taking roles in Cottages and Indians as part of the 2022 season and then again in 2023 as part of the massive, three-show company for The Donnellys: A Trilogy.

 

The latter, more than any of his other credits at the Blyth Festival, really fostered a sense of family and community. Because the group of actors was together all summer, working on all three shows outdoors at the Harvest Stage while a whole different season was unfolding indoors at Memorial Hall, those professionals really left that experience as the best of friends, Smith says. To this day, they will text or e-mail one another thanks to the bond that developed during that historic trilogy of shows.

 

He wasn’t able to make it work for the 2024 season, but was so happy to be back in 2025 that, now with a few seasons under his belt, he approached Festival Artistic Director Gil Garratt right after he heard the season announcement, asking if there was any way that he could be part of the company.

 

Not 15 minutes after the announcement, Smith reached out to Garratt asking if he could be considered and, furthermore - Smith says he was feeling audacious - if there was any way that he could work with the great Randy Hughson in some of the season’s productions, he would be forever grateful.

 

Wondering if he’d done the right thing or not, Smith heard back from Garratt almost immediately, saying Smith had beaten him to the punch by 15 minutes and that he was just about to reach out and invite Smith to be part of the 2025 company.
Beyond that, Garratt had some great news for Smith: he would be playing opposite Hughson in all three plays Garratt had in mind for him this season. Smith couldn’t sign the contract fast enough and - just like that - he was back in Blyth for another season, his fourth.

 

In Sir John A: Acts of a Gentrified Ojibway Rebellion, Smith plays Hugh - one of the two young men who take this immense road trip, all while Hughson’s Sir John A. Macdonald shares the stage with them, but is, in a way, in his own play within his own timeline until the crossing of the beams that brings them all together. 

 

In Quiet in the Land, Smith will play the role of Zepp, which was originated by the late, great Jerry Franken, who has always been somewhat of a hero to Smith. Smith was born in Brantford but raised in Port Elgin. As a result - and thanks to a particularly supportive teacher - Smith and others who showed promise as artists in waiting were treated to field trips that played into their interests, among them performances at the Shaw and Blyth Festivals during Smith’s formative years as a budding actor.

 

During that time, he became aware of the great work being done by the likes of Paul Thompson, David Fox and, of course, Franken. He truly marvelled at the work that Franken and Fox would do together as polar opposite artists who - either in spite of that or because of it - worked tremendously well together.

 

Lastly, Smith will play James Powers to Hughson’s Edward Powers in Powers and Gloria, the son of the titular local furniture magnate who wants to take over the business with an eye on the globalization of the economy.

 

Smith is so struck by the synergy of the three shows; how they can at once be so alike and so different and how they can be, in two of the three cases, written decades ago, and yet have continued, growing relevance in today’s ever-changing world.
On that note, Smith hopes that the shows will lead to some interesting conversations among audience members about the issues of the day and how they’re reflected on stage.

 

Mostly, Smith is happy to be home, in a way. He says that Garratt, General Manager Rachael King and Associate Artistic Director Severn Thompson have fostered such a caring and supportive environment that it’s difficult to not want to come to the Festival to work season after season. Specifically, Smith says they have cared for his family as it has grown. 

 

In his first season, 2017, his wife was due with their child just four days before he was set to arrive. Provisions were in place for any scenario, but Smith said the Festival team was clear that family comes first. That remains true, he said, as his housing situation has been given extra care as plans to host his family for visits over the course of the summer are in the works.