4 • Editorials 8 • Sports 11 • ‘Christmas Carol’ 31 • Entertainment
The
THIS WEEK
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A Huron County Christmas Carol Special Section Inside
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Volume 39 No. 46
Friday, November 17, 2023
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Main St. to reopen soon in Seaforth By Shawn Loughlin The Citizen
A time to remember Blyth Festival Artistic Director Gil Garratt is seen leading members of the Blyth Legion, Legion Ladies Auxiliary and other prominent members of the community into Memorial Hall for the village’s annual
Remembrance Day ceremony. Time was taken all over Huron County last Saturday to honour the men and women who have fought and died for Canada, and the Blyth ceremony, like most others, was well attended. (Shawn Loughlin photo)
The tractor that has been wedged into a Seaforth storefront on the ground floor of a historic main street building for weeks should be removed by the end of the month, with the main street to reopen in early December. Huron East Chief Administrative Officer Brad McRoberts and Mayor Bernie MacLellan said, at Huron East’s Council meeting on Nov. 7, that the plan is to have the main street open again by the beginning of December. As of right now, McRoberts said the building is expected to be saved, despite damage that manifested even at the very top of the structure. On Monday, it marked one month since the tractor, towing two wagons, slammed into the front of the building around 8 p.m. on Oct. 13. In a press release from Huron East, it stated that the building has been under the control of the building’s insurance company since Oct. 17, four days after the incident. “The municipality remains Continued on page 6
Five premieres, ‘Farm Show’ coming to Blyth in ’24 By Shawn Loughlin The Citizen Next year’s 50th anniversary Blyth Festival season will feature six productions - four indoors at Memorial Hall and two outdoors on the Harvest Stage - including five premieres and one remount of the Canadian play that started it all. The season will also include an ambitious program that aims to host 50 complementary events through the Festival, one for each year in its illustrious history. As Artistic Director Gil Garratt said one of the Festival’s board members put it,
“50 Ways to Leave a Legacy” as a play on Paul Simon’s seminal “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover”. Garratt says that, as a nod to the very mandate of the Festival - to tell the stories of its home community, its home country and its people - all of the plays have their roots within 40 kilometres of Memorial Hall, resulting in a hyper-localized season of theatre from a company that has spent the last half century telling Canadian stories. The season will begin outdoors with The Farm Show: Then and Now, an updated version of the foundational work that paved the
way not just for the Festival, but for Canadian theatre as many know it today. Written in 1972 by a group of Canadian theatre icons - Paul Thompson, Ted Johns, Janet Amos, Miles Potter, Anne Anglin, Fina MacDonell and the late David Fox the show began on farms in the former Goderich Township, but would go on to be produced all over the world as one of the most influential Canadian plays ever. Garratt says he has spoken with all of the living creators of the play, who have all given their blessing for the show to go ahead. Not only will it serve as a tribute to Fox,
whose impact on the Festival looms large, but Garratt says it will be a nod to the show that made people think that something like the Blyth Festival was even possible. While Garratt plans to stay true to the written script, he said that the portraits of the people of Huron County stopped in 1972 when the play was published. He hopes to update some of those stories in 2024, while remaining true to the play that means so much to Canadian theatre, Huron County and the Blyth Festival itself. However, it will not be an attempt to revisit the material and recreate
the process with new stories, like what was done with director Severn Thompson and her cast when the Festival produced Beyond The Farm Show in 2013. The Farm Show: Then and Now will run on the Harvest Stage from June 12 to Aug. 4. The second show to be produced outdoors on the Harvest Stage will be Onion Skins and Peach Fuzz: The Farmerettes, a theatrical adaptation of Bonnie Sitter’s celebrated book that tells the story of Ontario’s Farmerettes, a group of young woman who supported the Continued on page 3
Join the Festivities! November 24th 5pm - 9pm Please Support Local on Black Friday and Shop in the of Blyth
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Karaoke at The Blyth Inn Crafts at the Library 5pm to 7pm Gift Wrapping The Blyth Inn Night Market at Memorial Hall Open Dance 8pm Blyth East Side Dance