Blyth Festival 2024: Jamie Mac makes his Blyth debut with 'Farm Show' and 'Resort to Murder'

BY SHAWN LOUGHLIN

While The Farm Show and the story of its creation has seeped into the blood of so many theatre fans in Huron County, it’s almost refreshing to find an actor who hasn’t grown up steeped in those stories.

 

Jamie Mac is a member of the cast of The Farm Show: Then and Now and his level of familiarity with the original Farm Show is relatively low. He said he knew about it and its role in the history of Canadian theatre, but that’s about it. He thought he may have read it in theatre school, but then stopped himself, thinking that perhaps he hadn’t. Then again, he said, it’s a play that really comes alive when it’s on its feet, being performed by living, breathing actors. It doesn’t translate on the page like some other plays do.

 

Then again, much of the Blyth Festival experience is new to Mac. He has seen some shows here before, with A Huron County Christmas Carol and The Donnellys: A Trilogy immediately coming to mind, but he’s never acted here professionally before. Randy Hughson, who starred in both of the aforementioned shows and will be directing Mac in this season’s Resort to Murder, is a dear friend of Mac’s, so it’s his connection to Hughson and the Festival’s reputation that lured Mac to Huron County for the shows.

 

However, since arriving as part of this year’s company, Mac has been on a crash course with Farm Show resource material, meeting with the creators of the show and other major players who are still living, such as Alison Lobb.

 

He’s found the process fascinating, especially how drama that ended up on the stage could come from the extraordinary or the everyday - both seem to have equal footing in the show, which he thinks is such a reflection of real life.

 

The Farm Show: Then and Now, however, is just half of his mandate at the Festival this year. Mac will act as part of the cast of Resort to Murder, directed by Hughson and written by Birgitte Solem. 

 

Mac says he can’t say he’s really read a play like the one Solem has dreamed up. He said it’s campy and funny, tragic and dramatic, and horrific and scary, all at the same time. He said it’s so many things at once that it’s truly impressive and he can’t wait to put it on stage.

 

Mac is originally from the suburbs of St. John’s, Newfoundland, where he says the world of acting kind of snuck up on him. 
As a child, he said he wasn’t necessarily interested in acting at school and definitely didn’t consider it as a career option. The way he remembers it, he thinks a teacher might have forced him into the choir at school, which then led to him perhaps following a girl he liked at the time into the drama program. He said that surely led to him going over the top and trying to impress her, or others like her, with improv and the rest, more or less, is history. 

 

He tried to stay in Newfoundland, landing small acting jobs and learning theatre there, but soon knew he had to commit completely and travelled to Toronto for a proper theatre program at what is now known as Toronto Metropolitan University, formerly Ryerson.

 

There, things began happening for him quickly. In class one day, he wanted to perform a musical number and suggested something from Cats, which his professor dismissed immediately. Perhaps seeing his potential, he brought in some music he’d written himself that he thought Mac would be uniquely attuned to perform. It was a musical set in Nova Scotia.

 

Thanks to the success of his performance in class, Mac’s teacher asked him to be part of a workshop for the play in Nova Scotia. That would eventually lead him to landing the role.

 

The play would then be considered as part of the National Arts Centre season in Ottawa. However, when the play didn’t land as part of the season after all, Mac was still able to snatch a spot in the company, acting there for the season.

 

That has since led to eight seasons at the Stratford Festival. He lives in Stratford now and considers that theatre his home, in a way, because he’s become close with so many professionals within that specific theatre community.

 

One of his early milestones came when he was in his late 20s with the Festival’s production of Macbeth. The actor playing Macbeth injured himself and his understudy took on the role late in the season. Mac was approached, asking if he could learn the role on short notice and become the understudy for the understudy. He had absorbed so much of the play through osmosis and said he could do it. Sure enough, 48 hours and one throat infection later, Mac was on stage as Macbeth.

 

After that, Mac felt there was a much greater level of trust between him and the Festival for the seasons that were still to come.
In addition to his work at the Stratford Festival, Mac also has a number of film and television credits to his name, such as Hulu’s The Count of Three, Murdoch Mysteries and Netflix’s Painkiller.

 

The Farm Show: Then and Now opens on June 14 after preview performances on June 12-13. The show closes on Aug. 4. Resort to Murder begins with preview performances on July 24-25. It opens on July 26 and closes on Aug. 31.