Blyth Festival returns for first indoor-outdoor theatre season

To Gil Garratt, it’s felt like an eternity since audiences have filled Blyth, Ont.’s Memorial Hall.

“I’ve been coming into this beautiful space by myself over the past two-and-a-half years and dreaming of this moment,” said Garratt, the Blyth Festival’s artistic director.

That moment is the unveiling of the Blyth Festival’s first ever indoor and outdoor season, with plays returning to their main stage, the Blyth Memorial Hall, and continuing at the outdoor Harvest Stage, which sustained the theatre group through the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Audiences will be able to come to Blyth all summer long and see shows here in the Memorial Hall, and see shows every evening at the Harvest Stage,” said Garratt.

Outdoors, audiences will be treated to James Reaney’s Donnelly Trilogy. The infamous Lucan family’s turbulent and troubled history in southwestern Ontario, told in three separate plays, Sticks and Stones, The St. Nicholas Hotel and Handcuffs.

“Audiences will actually be able to come and see, in August, all three plays in three nights,” said Garratt.

Indoors, four plays at the Blyth Memorial Hall will take the stage, including Liars at a Funeral, which was supposed to open Blyth’s 2020 season. The Waltz, cancelled due to COVID-19 last summer. The world premiere of Matt Murray’s Chronicles of Sarnia and The Real McCoy, about Chatham, Ont.’s Elijah McCoy, born to runaway American slaves, and who revolutionized the steam engine locomotion.

“We need this here in Blyth,” said Garratt.

While the Harvest Stage attracted 5,783 patrons to Blyth last summer, it’s a far cry from the pre-pandemic 20,000 to 25,000 people that normally come to Blyth to watch plays each summer.

The return to a full season is music to the ears of local businesses.

“When I first moved here doing the renovations, seeing all the people coming out of the theatre, I was thinking, ‘That’s so cool, we’ll have those people coming to visit us.’ That disappeared after COVID, so we are really looking forward to next year,” said Hans Veenvliet, who runs the Wild Goose Studio in downtown Blyth with his wife.

Next summer will mark their first summer open at the same time the theatre is running, which is located right across the street from their art studio.

Tickets go on sale to Blyth’s 2023 season in early January.

“We’re thrilled to have all of this, and all of that, and be able to invite audiences here to Blyth, all summer long, and to be able to see shows on both of these stages,” said Garratt.

Blyth’s 2023 season will run from June to September, and you can learn more on the Blyth Festival website.