The Blyth Festival Podcast

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We all know about Rosie the Riveter and the women who kept our factories afloat during WWII. But did you know thousands of young women (some as young as 16)  took to our fields and farms as well? These girls kept the country (and the troops) fed, but their contribution was largely forgotten once the war was over.

The Blyth Festival sets out to right this wrong with a new play called Onion Skins and Peach Fuzz: The Farmerettes. Written by Alison Lawrence and based on original research by local historian Bonnie Sitter, this new work brings all the hijinks and hardships of six fictionalized Farmerettes to joyous life.

Join host Joanne Wallace for a discussion with actors Lucy Hill and Alicia Salvador and director Severn Thompson about the book and the play that restore these hard-working young women to their proper place in Canada's war history.

Tickets on sale now! 1.877.862.5984 | www.blythfestival.com

We love your feedback. Send us your thoughts any time: [email protected]

The Blyth Festival is supported by many generous sponsors, along with our loyal Blyth Festival Members. Onion Skins & Peach Fuzz is sponsored by The Royal Canadian Legion Branch 420 and The Legion Ladies Auxiliary to Branch 420. Our season sponsor is Bruce Power. Thank you all for this critical support.

More about Severn Thompson, Lucy Hill and Alicia Salvador.

More about Bonnie Sitter's book and an upcoming Farmerettes documentary here.

Credits: Research/writing/host: Joanne Wallace | Sound design/production/editing: Jim Park

Music:  Wicked Man and The Nightingale is Singing Our Song, Martin Landstrom via Epidemic Sound. Ukulele music by kind permission of Heidi Wai-Yee Chan | Theme Achaidh Cheide, (c) Kevin MacLeod, licensed under CC BY 3.0

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Rural Ontario isn't exactly known as a hotbed of paranormal activity. But it turns out Canada's last official charge of witchcraft was laid right here in Huron County. In 1919.

Yes, you read that correctly. A Canadian woman was charged with witchcraft long after the telephone, the radio and the automobile had been invented. And playwright Beverley Cooper confronts this  ridiculous reality in her new play, The Trials of Maggie Pollock.

Join host Joanne Wallace as she sits down with both Beverley and the play's director Ann-Marie Kerr to explore what it takes to bring a piece of real history to life for an audience, and what it is about female power that seems to strike such fear and loathing in those around them.

Tickets on sale now! 1.877.862.5984 | www.blythfestival.com

Bus transportation available from Stratford, Kitchener and London for select  dates. Performance dates and details: https://blythfestival.com/tickets/stratford-bus/

We love your feedback. Send us your thoughts any time: [email protected]

The Blyth Festival is supported by many amazing sponsors, along with our loyal Blyth Festival Members. Maggie Pollock is sponsored by The Margaret and Andrew Stephens Foundation. Our season sponsor is Bruce Power. None of this could happen without you!

More about Beverley Cooper here, and Ann-Marie Kerr here

Credits: Research/writing/host: Joanne Wallace | Sound design/production/editing: Jim Park

Music:  Original music by kind permission of Heidi Wai-Yee Chan | Theme Achaidh Cheide, (c) Kevin MacLeod, licensed under CC BY 3.0

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Fifty years ago this summer, an actor, a playwright and a newspaper editor walked into a bar .... 

OK, kidding, it wasn't a bar. But James Roy, Anne Chislett and Keith Roulston DID sit down in Keith's living room and decide to start a summer theatre festival in Blyth, Ontario. Miraculously, nobody told them they were crazy. Fifty years later, theatre-lovers around the world are still enjoying the fruits of their hard work and imagination.

Join host Joanne Wallace for an intimate chat with James, who became Blyth's founding Artistic Director. He'll share the inside story on how the festival came into being, who rallied around the cause and became the new theatre's greatest champions, and exactly how director Paul Thompson once talked some local farmers into hoisting two live cows on and off stage every night - for art.

Tickets on sale now! 1.877.862.5984 | www.blythfestival.com

Bus transportation available from Stratford, Kitchener and London for select  dates. Performance dates and details: https://blythfestival.com/tickets/stratford-bus/

We love your feedback. Send us your thoughts any time: [email protected]

The Blyth Festival is supported by many amazing sponsors, along with our loyal Blyth Festival Members. Our season sponsor is Bruce Power. None of this could happen without you!

More about James Roy at Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia

Credits: Research/writing/host: Joanne Wallace | Sound design/production/editing: Jim Park 

Music:  Million Things I'd Rather Do, Binkley, via Epidemic Sound | Theme Achaidh Cheide, (c) Kevin MacLeod, licensed under CC BY 3.0

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In the long, hot summer of 1972, a group of barefoot Toronto actors made their way to an abandoned farm house in Clinton, Ontario. There they began a theatrical experiment that would result in a collective creation known as The Farm Show.

Quite possibly the most influential play in Canadian-theatre history, The Farm Show became a massive run-away hit and an international phenomenon. It also contained the seeds of what would become the Blyth Festival several years later.

This summer, Blyth mounts The Farm Show Then & Now, an updated version of this beloved Canadian classic.

Join host Joanne Wallace as she chats with veteran actor/director Miles Potter - who was part of the original collective 52 years ago - and Blyth Artistic Director Gil Garratt. Together they'll take  a look at The Farm Show's rich history, and give you a sneak-peak at what this summer's production holds in store.

Tickets on sale now! 1.877.862.5984 | www.blythfestival.com

Bus transportation available from Stratford, Kitchener and London for select  dates. Performance dates and details: https://blythfestival.com/tickets/stratford-bus/

We love your feedback. Send us your thoughts any time: [email protected]

The Farm Show Then & Now is sponsored by The McGavin Family and by our loyal Blyth Festival Members. Our season sponsor is the amazing Bruce Power. Thank you all. 

Credits: Research/writing/host: Joanne Wallace | Sound design/production/editing: Jim Park

Music:  Harvest Month and Ole-Time Fiddlin', River Run Dry, via Epidemic Sound | Theme Achaidh Cheide, (c) Kevin MacLeod, licensed under CC BY 3.0

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Need help choosing what to see at Blyth this summer? We've got you covered!

Playwright, actor, and avid Huron-County historian Kelly McIntosh walks us through all six shows on Blyth's 2024 playbill in this episode. Kelly has appeared on stages across the country, and will be familiar to Blyth audiences as co-writer of In The Wake of Wettlaufer and The Outdoor Donnellys. Most recently at Blyth, she co-starred in 2022's Cottagers and Indians.

Get the inside scoop on what each play is about. And we dare you not to fall in love with every one.

 0:00 - Introduction

1:49 - The Trials of Maggie Pollock

8:06 -  Onion Skins and Peach Fuzz: The Farmerettes

17:03 - Saving Graceland

23:32 - Resort to Murder

28:46 - The Golden Anniversaries

32:45 - The Farm Show: Then & Now

40:01 - Episode wrap-up

Tickets on sale now! 1.877.862.5984 | www.blythfestival.com

Bus transportation available from Stratford, Kitchener and London for select  dates. Performance dates and details: https://blythfestival.com/tickets/stratford-bus/

We love your feedback. Send us your thoughts any time: [email protected]

Our season sponsor is the amazing Bruce Power. Thank you<3

Credits: Research/writing/host: Joanne Wallace | Sound design/production/editing: Jim Park

Music: 15 South, Roy Edwin Williams; The Nightingale is Singing Our Song. Martin Landström; So Many Roads, Headland; Ole-Time Fiddlin', River Run Dry, all via Epidemic Sound | The Music Box, Vivek Abhishek via No Copyright Music | Don't Die on Me, Myuuji via BreakingCopyright, licensed under CC BY 3.0 | Theme Achaidh Cheide, (c) Kevin MacLeod, licensed under CC BY 3.0

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Have you ever thought A Christmas Carol is just a bit … quaint? Old fashioned? A nice period piece,  but without much relevance to the modern world?

Well, buckle up. The Blyth Festival’s Huron County Christmas Carol drops the classic story right into modern-day Huron County.  Here Ebenezer Scrooge has bought up every feed mill in southwestern Ontario, and everyone else can barely make ends meet.

This is a remount of the sold-out 2019 premiere - a production that broke attendance records and left plaid-shirted farmers weeping in the aisles.

Join me for a fascinating conversation with Blyth’s Artistic Director Gil Garratt and actor Randy Hughson. Together we debate the timeless appeal of Scrooge’s journey to redemption, explore the dark side of the Dickens classic, and discover why a contemporary retelling of this story is exactly what your 2023 Christmas needs.

A Huron County Christmas Carol runs November 30 - December 22, 2023. Tickets available here, or by calling 1.800.862.5284.

"Of all the many versions of Dickens' story I've seen, this is the first that is truly moving."  Christopher Hoile, Stage Door

Special thanks to all Members of the Blyth Festival, along with  Bruce Power, our New Play Development sponsor. A Huron County Christmas Carol lives because of your generous support. Thank you!

We love your feedback - the good, the bad, and the ugly. Please email us at [email protected].

Credits:  Research/writing/host: Joanne Wallace | Sound design/production/editing: Jim Park

Music: "Dirt Under Their Feet," "So Caught Up In The Money," Huron County Christmas Carol, composer John Powers | Incidental music: Courtie-Radford: God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (Hand bells);  Beanstalk Audio: Merry Christmas Bells; Traditional: Twelve Days of Christmas; all via Shockwave-Sound.com | CKNX Barn Dance: "It's The Saturday Night Barn Dance, Volume 2," 1998 compilation cassette |Theme (c) Kevin MacLeod Achaidh Cheide, licensed under CC BY 3.0 | Clip art: Stockio.com 

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Actor Andrew Moodie burst onto the scene as a playwright in 1995 with Riot, an exploration of the 1992 Yonge Street Riot that followed the Rodney King uprisings in LA. Since then, Andrew has written many more  plays bringing Black Canadian stories and voices to our stages.

These include The Real McCoy, the story of a gifted young African Canadian engineer who revolutionized steam-engine technology in the late 1800s, and changed the entire world in the process.

Join me for a fascinating conversation about how Andrew first discovered this lost bit of Canadian history, and turned it into the hit play recently remounted at the Blyth Festival.

The Blyth Festival is 2.5 hours west of Toronto | 1.800.862.5284 | [email protected]

"Flawless cast ... sprightly script ... an altogether marvelous show ... had me laughing one moment and wiping away a tear a few beats later."   Ontario Stage

The Real McCoy is sponsored by Orr Insurance. Our New Play Development sponsor is Bruce Power. Special thanks to you both, along with all Members of the Blyth Festival - we couldn't do it without you!

Credits:  Research/writing/host: Joanne Wallace | Sound design/production/editing: Jim Park | Incidental music: Doug Peterman, Sean Purdy | Ode to the Pozo Pioneers, composer John Francis Jorgensen, performed by John Starcluster, via Shockwave-Sound.com | Theme (c) Kevin MacLeod Achaidh Cheide, licensed under CC BY 3.0

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Part two of our in-depth conversation with Blyth Festival Artistic Director Gil Garratt about his revival of James Reaney’s landmark Donnelly trilogy.

Today Gil tells us about the design and staging of his new productions, and about the changes he’s made to Reaney’s original works for this production. He also talks about the Blyth audience’s particular affinity for this story, as well as his own personal connection to it.

The Blyth Festival is 2.5 hours west of Toronto | 1.800.862.5284 | [email protected]

★★★★★  "No theatre lover should miss it!"

"The chances of seeing The Donnellys: A Trilogy are so rare, much less in such a beautifully acted and directed production, that no one with an interest in Canadian drama should let the chance go by to see it. Indeed, it is such a great work that no theatre lover in general should miss it."
                                                                                                                      - Ontario Stage

The Donnellys: A Trilogy is sponsored by Carlyle Peterson LLP and The Good Foundation, with additional support from Donnelly Murphy Lawyers and Blyth Legion 420 & Legion Ladies Auxiliary.


Thanks to all of you, to Bruce Power, our New Play Development sponsor, and to all Members of the Blyth Festival. We couldn't do it without you!

Credits: Research/writing/host: Joanne Wallace | Sound production/editing: Jim Park | Incidental music: Doug Peterman, Sean Purdy, Eleanor Plunkett, composer Emmett Cooke via Shockwave-Sound.com | Theme © Kevin MacLeod Achaidh Cheide, licensed under CC BY 3.0

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In the wee small hours of February 4, 1880, an angry mob descended on a farmstead in Lucan.  An hour later, five people were dead, and the farmhouse was in flames. 

This shocking piece of Canadian history – known as the Donnelly Massacres – was first dramatized in a trio of plays written by James Reaney in the 1970s. All three shows have been abridged and updated by Blyth Festival Artistic Director Gil Garratt, and appear in rep this summer at the Blyth Festival.

Today Gil shares his thoughts on why this troubling story is even more relevant in today’s climate of political polarization and factionalism. He also walks us through the actual history of the Donnelly family, and offers some insights into how a nation’s character is revealed through its art.

The Blyth Festival is 2.5 hours west of Toronto | 1.800.862.5284 | [email protected]

★★★★★  "No theatre lover should miss it!"

"The chances of seeing The Donnellys: A Trilogy are so rare, much less in such a beautifully acted and directed production, that no one with an interest in Canadian drama should let the chance go by to see it. Indeed, it is such a great work that no theatre lover in general should miss it."
                                                                                                                      - Ontario Stage

The Donnellys: A Trilogy is sponsored by Carlyle Peterson LLP and The Good Foundation, with additional support from Donnelly Murphy Lawyers and Blyth Legion 420 & Legion Ladies Auxiliary.

Thanks to all of you, to Bruce Power, our New Play Development sponsor, and to all Members of the Blyth Festival. We couldn't do it without you!

Credits: Research/writing/host: Joanne Wallace | Sound production/editing: Jim Park | Incidental music: Doug Peterman, Sean Purdy, Eleanor Plunkett, composer Emmett Cooke via Shockwave-Sound.com | Theme © Kevin MacLeod Achaidh Cheide, licensed under CC BY 3.0

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Matt Murray started writing plays and musicals after a 20-year career as a musical-theatre performer – and he’s never looked back. His new comedy,  Chronicles of Sarnia, opened this summer at the Blyth Festival. 

Matt and host Joanne Wallace discuss the craft of writing comedy for the stage and the role the audience plays in that process. Matt also shares what inspired him to write The Chronicles of Sarnia, a story set in his home town, and how supporters of a small theatre festival in Blyth, Ontario help artists create new works that continue to define Canada.

The Blyth Festival is 2.5 hours west of Toronto
1.800.862.5284 | [email protected]

Critics and audiences love this show!

"...home truths along with abundant belly laughs" - Ontario Stage

Special thanks to production co-sponsors David and Jennifer Palmer, New Play Development sponsor Bruce Power, and all Members of the Blyth Festival!

Credits: Research/writing/host: Joanne Wallace | Sound production/editing: Jim Park | Incidental music: Doug Peterman, Sean Purdy | Theme © Kevin MacLeod Achaidh Cheide, licensed under CC BY 3.0