Blyth bonus issue! Now with 100% real Blyth!

From BLYTH, ONTARIO
July 16th, 2010

All right, all right, this isn't the Michael Jackson issue I've been working on....but it's close. Because Michael Jackson and The Blyth Festival are practically the same thing. I don't know what that means. But I refuse to delete it.

For all those who want a Blyth bedtime story, this is a little one. It's something I wrote for inclusion in the patrons' newsletter, and if they actually publish it I may be getting strange looks around town and gifts of lasagna for years to come. Here's hopin'!

(Moonwalker edition coming soon, promise.)

Dear friends (and I say friends because I do consider all Blyth patrons as such...except for the ones that don't like me in the shows),

Heather Black, our marketing guru-ette extraordinaire, has asked me to share a few words on the Blyth experience from my point of view as an actor in my third season here. Never one to turn down a chance to write a thousand-word essay on my day off, here I am.

I could tell you about the shows, and acting here, but you've seen me do that. And really, what can I say? I put on funny clothes and pretend to be somebody else for a living. Eric Coates and company have assembled one of the finest groups of people in the country at putting on funny clothes and making faces, and I'm pleased and proud to be one of their number.

But what I'd really like to tell you about is the Blyth administrative offices. Nothing fancy, really, just a former bank divided up into a few working areas, mostly open concept except for Sir Coates' CUSHY CORNER OFFICE; a boardroom used alternately for having meetings or for eating sandwiches; the former bank vault used as a photocopy room (so they say, but I keep looking for the piles of money); the box office around the corner...

What makes the office special to me is the feeling I get there. It's such a fun and welcoming place to drop by, and to see people buzzing around, happy about the work that they're doing. Or maybe they're just nice to me because I keep hanging around and they think, "Poor girl. No one else will talk to her". But that's sweet of them, isn't it?

The first day I arrived in town this season to begin rehearsals, I dropped by the office to say hi to Deb Sholdice, General Manager, superhero and all-round cool gal. In pops Sharon Thompson, equally cool and always well-coiffed Head of Box Office, to talk some important business with Deb. Seeing me, she immediately shouts, "What's your shoe size?!" and runs out to her car. Seems the shoe shop in Wingham recently had a big sale at which the two of them went hog wild, buying even shoes that didn't fit anyone they know. Catherine Fitch has also just arrived and next thing we know, the Box Office and General Managers are down on their knees sizing us and shoving shiny new shoes on our feet. This is why I like working at Blyth; it makes me feel like Cinderella.

Of course, it's not all fun and games and shoe sales at the Blyth Festival; sometimes there's serious work to be done. For this, Deb employs a small brass wheel that sits atop her desk. You spin the dial and it points to "Maybe", "Pass the buck", or "Fire someone". Lacking this sophisticated technology, Eric sits in his office buried knee-high in new scripts under consideration, relying on the age-old technique of eenie-meenie-miney-moe. To cast the plays, he considers the pile of photos and resumes sent in by actors across the country and then throws them all up in the air, seeing which ones land on top. Since Canada has such a deep field of talented performers, this method has done well for him so far. Sadly, Gordon Pinsent's CV is too heavy and keeps getting stuck at the bottom.

A visit to the office isn't complete without some kind of comedy routine from Eric and Deb, who keep their doors open, I suspect primarily so that they can shout witty one-liners at each other. There's the occasional guest appearance from Deb's daughter and Box Office rep, Sarrah, who is a bonafide comedian and makes me run from the office in fear of laughing so hard that I'll pee. Then there's Heather Thompson, House Manager, who acted with me years ago in The Thirteenth One, which she takes as license to make fun of me and call me rude nicknames all day long. Hey, the office needs its insult comic, too.

In the middle of the room sits a desk sometimes used by summer interns and such, but more often covered in bakeware and crockpots. There's always some kind of potluck or bakesale or barbecue at the festival, another big reason I can't stay away. The Shaw Festival wants me back, badly, but I keep telling them, "Not until you put some pork on this here fork."* And Martin Scorcese keeps calling, but he hasn't learned to offer me a Bonanza Breakfast.

A new tradition at Blyth, one I find endearing and utterly characteristic of this place, is that, on a show's first tech rehearsal day (a twelve-hour day going from about noon until midnight), the stage managers and cast of the other shows serve a dinner in the lower hall to the cast and crew. This so that everyone can have one less thing to do or think about in the middle of a long, sometimes difficult day.

Of course, by the time I got to our dinner (a little late) for A Killing Snow, the food had run out and I had to go home and cook. (And I made banana bread and a rhubarb crumble for The Bordertown Cafe people.) I'm not angry or anything; somebody around here owes me some lasagna is all I'm saying.

Reluctant as I always am to leave the office (having never had one and suffering from cubicle-envy), I do inevitably have to pass through that back door and into the backstage area to get ready and perform. For the best, most responsive and warmest audiences I've ever experienced anywhere in my fifteen years as an actor.

And in case you were wondering, backstage is not exempt from the Blyth food culture. Every few days, we'll walk into the green room to discover Gil Garratt sitting there with a grin and a box of cream puffs from Culberts in Goderich, at which point we all shout at him (as best we can through pastry-filled mouths) for making our costumes not fit.

I can think of worse problems to have.


See you all out there,


Lisa

* A reference to an annual Blyth Country Supper event, hosted by the local pig farmers' association. It really is called "Pork on Your Fork".

P.S Touristas: http://www.blythfestival.com/ if you want to know what the fuss is about. Some excitin' new-fangled video clips on there and everything!