After another successful Blyth Festival season, Gil Garratt takes time to reflect
BY SHAWN LOUGHLIN
Blyth Festival Artistic Director Gil Garratt says it’s hard not to look back at the 2025 season at the Festival and not feel tremendously gratified in a number of respects.
Garratt took the time to sit down with The Citizen at his Memorial Hall office to reflect on what was the most ambitious season at the Festival since the COVID-19 pandemic and certainly one of the most successful since he was named artistic director back in 2015.
Not only did the season sell well - Garratt says that just 40 people shy of 25,000 found their way to Memorial Hall or the Harvest Stage this season, and that’s before this December’s return of A Huron County Christmas Carol - but Garratt said it was tremendously satisfying from an artistic perspective as well. Garratt says that’s about a 20 per cent (4,000 patrons or so) increase over last season and about 10,000 more than his first season in 2015. Seeing that growth, he said, has been important to him.
That is due in no small part to Garratt and his team trying something that had never been done at the Festival before, which is bringing the entire company together for one show, which ended up being Anne Chislett’s Governor General’s Award-winning Quiet in the Land, which was produced over the course of the season outdoors at the Harvest Stage.
For much of the Festival’s life, its company would be divided into two camps; one would perform in the season’s first and third shows, while the other would form the cast for the second and fourth shows. Like ships passing in the night, the two halves of the company would never have the chance to work with one another. For Quiet in the Land, to add to its grand feeling, Garratt wanted a large cast, complete with a community aspect through the child actors, so he felt the time was right to bridge the gap in the company and bring everyone together on one stage.
That experiment, of which he was a part, not only as an actor, but as an on-stage caretaker for his children, who also performed in the play, was one that he feels will hold a special place in the Blyth Festival’s heart for a long time.
Whether it was meant to be this way or not, Garratt (and his family) certainly put its stamp on this season. Not only did Garratt direct Emma Donoghue’s The Wind Coming Over The Sea, but his daughter, Gloria, was a featured performer in it. As mentioned, he and his children were on stage for Quiet in the Land and he ended up playing the older version of Doc Cruickshank in Radio Town: The Doc Cruickshank Story, though, he says, it wasn’t originally supposed to be that way. There had been talk of him appearing as the older version of Cruickshank originally, but only as a small role that would maybe begin and end the play. That would evolve into Garratt taking on the role of the titular Cruickshank in the entire second half of the play.
Garratt said that, especially in recent years, he’s had no problem chipping in where he felt help was needed, be it with carpentry or anything else behind the scenes, so, this season, he said it was nice to be back on the stage and working with the company. As a result, he said, it was nice to put his stamp on this season as a performer, not just as a playwright or director or as the Festival’s artistic director.
Furthermore, he had some connective tissue with a show that he wasn’t directly involved with: Keith Roulston’s Powers and Gloria. When the show premiered 20 years earlier, Garratt was part of the cast (under director Randy Hughson, who, this season, played the titular Powers), so for Garratt and Hughson to have those connections to the show, it was nice to have it as part of the season as well.
Garratt also said that Powers and Gloria, more than any other show this season, was the one that people would come up to him and praise, saying it was one of the best shows they’d seen in a while.
In directing The Wind Coming Over The Sea, Garratt said the decision to take the helm of that show only made sense. He had been working with Donoghue on the project since she first pitched it to him, so it was only logical that he direct it. So, when its success went through the roof and the Festival decided to extend the run, it was supremely satisfying for Garratt, who had a feeling that the show had the potential to be something special.
Ticket sales were good ahead of its premiere, he said, but once it hit the stage and the word of mouth began, the show just caught fire and its original run was quickly over 90 per cent sold out, leading to the extension of the run.
He said he has also appreciated the beginning of a new relationship between the Festival and Donoghue. When she was in Blyth for the last show of the run, he said, the Festival hosted a volunteer recognition event and she didn’t run off back home after the show, she stayed and mingled with all of the volunteers who make the Festival the success that it is every year, which he felt was very telling of her down-to-earth nature.
Seeing the growth at the Festival has been gratifying for Garratt. He also has hope for the future. In his curtain speech ahead of productions of The Wind Coming Over The Sea, Garratt would always ask those in the crowd if it was their “maiden voyage” with the Festival and, near the end of the show’s run, he said it felt like almost half of the audience members would raise their hands. As if that wasn’t rewarding enough, seeing new members coming to Memorial Hall and knowing that, if they left happy, they’d be back again, Garratt said hearing the other half of the patrons clap for those with their hands up was the truly great part. The Festival regulars were welcoming the newcomers into a community, which cuts to the heart of what the Festival is all about, he said.
Looking ahead, A Huron County Christmas Carol, written by Garratt and local musician John Powers, will run this holiday season from Dec. 3-21. Looking even further ahead, Garratt is hoping to announce a new season sometime next month, so keep your eyes on The Citizen for that news.