Blyth Festival 2025: Richard Comeau makes his Blyth Festival debut
BY SCOTT STEPHENSON
When actor Richard Comeau got the call requesting he come to Huron County to be part of the Blyth Festival’s 2025 season, it was an offer he couldn't refuse. “I’ve always wanted to work at Blyth,” Comeau confessed. “I didn’t know that this opportunity was going to present itself at all - it was actually quite surprising!”
For his Blyth Festival debut, Comeau is diving in head first - he’s one of many performers this year pulling triple duty. So, how is this Festival newcomer handling the extra-heavy workload of the 2025 season? “Barely!” he declared. “It’s quite a challenge. The good thing about it is that all three characters are very different.”
In Anne Chislett’s Quiet in the Land, Comeau will be playing the role of Menno Miller. “I’m playing a young Amish kid whose goal in life is to just preach the gospel, and have a family, and do everything that Amish people do. He’s the friend of Yock, the lead, played by Landon Doak.”
He also plays Darryl in Keith Roulston’s Powers and Gloria. “I think that would be probably my smallest of the three roles, but he’s still in there a bunch; my season is pretty packed. The way my character speaks is very much like me, so I feel like that is going to be a little bit easier to memorize. But he’s a very-loving guy, an affectionate guy, who just cares too much for a woman who might not care as much for him as he would hope.”
In Sir John A: Acts of a Gentrified Ojibway Rebellion, Comeau will be playing Bobby Rabbit. “I’m playing an older guy, in my later thirties, who’s a native dude, an Indigenous guy, and he struggles with the balance of the things that are going on in the world and his views about Canada, and politics. He’s just trying to have a decent life, without all of the historical traumas jumping in at him,” he explained. “It’s only a four-hander, so they’re all pretty-substantial roles. The story revolves around Bobby, and his attempt to retrieve some artifacts that were taken from his grandfather.”
Comeau is very excited to finally be setting foot on Blyth’s famed Harvest Stage in Quiet in the Land. “I’ve seen a few shows there - I love that stage!” He’s also enthusiastic about seeing a few familiar faces this season. “The people I get to work with are so fantastic!” he exclaimed. “I get to do, basically, a Native buddy comedy with my Native buddy, James Dallas Smith,” he told The Citizen. “We went out for a drink in September, and said, ‘oh, it would be so cool if we got to work together on the stage.’ Just chatting, and saying how cool it would be to work together. And then the world answered!”
It may be a buddy comedy, but Comeau also believes that Sir John A will teach audiences a thing or two. “There’s so much Canadian history that the average Canadian knows very little to nothing about, especially when it comes to Indigenous history. Sir John A is telling a story, and it’s giving a little bit more background on the historical importance of this country that people just generally don’t know, or they haven’t bothered to listen to. I’ve been in multiple Indigenous productions, and I find it’s always a really great conversation starter,” he said. “The average Canadian has very little knowledge, in my opinion, about what Indigenous people in this country have faced over the years, and what they’re still facing today. I think theatre is a fantastic way to bridge that gap - the audience is going to sit and watch something that’s entertaining, and also learn something in the process. I think it’s extremely important in rural places such as Huron County. I don’t think there’s a very large population of Indigenous people around here. However, Indigenous peoples have resided all over this continent for so many years - well before Canada became a country.”
He’s also excited to see Radio Town: The Doc Cruickshank Story. “The show that was written by Nathan Howe, who’s an old friend of mine. We did a show together at Canadian Stage last year in September.” That show was Jani Lauzon and Kaitlyn Riordan’s 1939, which tells the story of a student production of All’s Well that Ends Well being put on at a residential school in northern Ontario in anticipation of a visit from King George VI.
Comeau clearly loves theatre, but he’s not just a lover, he’s a fighter. Literally, he fights, and directs the fighting of others, professionally. He’s the first Indigenous actor to be certified as a Fight Instructor with Fight Directors Canada, which is no easy feat. “It takes several years of training,” he explained. “There are different ways to go about it, but you have to start with different certifications. So there’s basic, intermediate and advanced certifications as an actor combatant, each of which has different disciplines, and each of which progressively gets more demanding. In the basic, acting is not that important - it’s more about learning the basic skills of these disciplines. Once you get up to advanced, the acting skills have to be there, because you’re telling a story. It has to be believable. It’s not just, ‘okay, this person knows how to wield a sword,’ it’s ‘what kind of story are you trying to tell? What kind of character are you trying to portray?’”
He’s found that an effective fight isn’t just about throwing punches. “In my experience, it’s all about storytelling - when it comes down to fight direction, I want to tell the right story, without too many bells and whistles. I want to make sure that I’m very clear, and precise, and I’m serving the story. When it comes to performing in a play, I want to do the same - I don’t want to do too much, but I also don’t want to do too little. I still want to make sure that the story that I’m telling is very engaging and entertaining, and I don’t just want to be a fly on the wall. That being said, I don’t want to do a cartwheel when all I have to do is just walk from point A to point B,” he explained. “I feel like there’s a really good balance between fight direction and performing that I really quite enjoy… one of the things that I pride myself on is the ability to bring an audience into the world that I’m helping to create. And I feel like that is a really fantastic thing to be able to think about when I’m doing fight direction - I want that audience engagement. I want them to have ‘oh my gosh!’ moments, or ‘that’s funny!’ moments, and whatnot.”
It’s hard for Comeau to choose a favourite fight scene. “I have so many! I fight-directed Where the Blood Mixes at Soulpepper. And I was so fortunate to have two actors who were so incredibly skilled and talented - it made my job so much easier, and so much fun! I mean, it’s always fun, but when you have people who understand their bodies, and their movements, and have some sort of experience with stage combat, it makes what you’re able to choreograph a little bit more fun and entertaining. You can start pushing the boundaries and making things even more exciting, for both the actors and the audience watching.”
He also feels lucky to have been able to pursue his performing dreams through a post-secondary education. “I went to school at Laurentian University, for theatre performance. The program doesn’t exist anymore,” Comeau pointed out. “But before the program was cancelled, my former professor, Ian Maclennan, hired me to do the fights and violence for The Scottish Play, and that was his final show that he was directing. So he directed me in my first show and then I got to be part of his process during his final show over a decade later - that was such a fun experience. Things came full circle.”