Blyth Festival at 50: Janet Amos set the Blyth Festival tone, then rescued it a decade later
BY SHAWN LOUGHLIN
Janet Amos can be counted among the most successful artistic directors in Blyth Festival history - and you know that’s true because she did it twice. And it’s easy to understand her commitment to this area when it was Huron County that convinced her to remain in the world of theatre.
Her second stint at the helm of the Festival is credited as saving it, pulling it back from the brink of closure after three seasons that lost audiences and money along similar lines. Her time as artistic director from 1994 to 1997 enabled the survival of the Festival, but in the early 1970s, she was simply an actor within Toronto’s Theatre Passe Muraille who headed west to Huron County to embark on a crazy little project. That project became The Farm Show, and it would change Canadian theatre forever, but it also changed Amos forever.
Amos is from Toronto and was not overly familiar with Huron County when she came as part of the collective that would change the world of Canadian theatre. However, this was at a time when Amos was considering quitting theatre. She said it felt as though she was unemployed half of the time and wasn’t loving some of the work she was doing in the other half of her time.
Being on those farms and meeting the people of Huron County completely reinvigorated her love for the theatre and set the course for the decades that were to come.
She and the cast returned to the area shortly after creating the show and performing it for the very first time near Clinton in Ray Bird’s barn. They were touring with The Farm Show and playing very small communities and unusual venues - one particular tour that comes to top of mind for Amos was the Crystal Palace of Brussels - which included Blyth and its ailing Memorial Hall.
Amos and the gang returned to Toronto, however, and in the meantime, Keith Roulston, Anne Chislett and James Roy founded what was called, at the time, the Blyth Summer Festival, producing its first season in 1975.
It wasn’t until the second season that Amos saw a show at the Festival and said she immediately admired what the Festival was doing - telling Canadian stories at a time when few theatres in the country were.
It was the next season that began Amos’ involvement with the Festival when founder and then-Artistic Director James Roy came calling in hopes that Amos would perform in one of the Festival’s shows as part of its third season in 1977. A very pregnant Amos had to decline, but considered, and eventually accepted, a second offer to direct The Blyth Memorial History Show, written by Jim Schaefer. Amos had already directed at Theatre Passe Muraille, but she still considered herself a “baby director” at the time.
Amos even had her concerns about directing the show, but she consulted with her mother, who insisted that children know to come at times that are convenient for their mothers. True to this proclamation, The Blyth Memorial History Show opened and Amos was in the hospital the next day welcoming a very punctual, understanding and theatre-conscious child into the world. The staff even fashioned its own “It’s a Boy” signs for Amos upon her return to Blyth.
As for the show, Amos was committed to her work in Blyth from the beginning. Schaefer’s work was heavily improvisational and Amos insisted on bringing another theatre legend, Layne Coleman, on to help. He was busy in Saskatchewan with Paul Thompson and the Festival didn’t have the money to fly him to Blyth. Amos insisted that she needed Coleman, so she paid for his flight out of her own pocket and the show was a success, although Amos admits it felt very “scrabbly” at the time.
As part of the 1978 season, Amos’ husband and one of the country’s most prolific playwrights and actors, Ted Johns, created The School Show for the Festival on a very aggressive timeline. They had young children at the time and Amos was working at both the Shaw Festival and acting in television, but, as she says, when you’re in a creative field, you can’t turn down work.
It was then that Amos was encouraged by both Chislett and Roy to apply to be the next artistic director of the Blyth Festival. Because she was so busy, she almost missed the cut-off to apply and eventually did so by way of a handwritten letter. She was among five or so people who were interviewed and it was dedicated theatre volunteer Sheila Richards who informed Amos that she was the successful candidate and that her support was unanimous.
Years later, Amos laughs, she found out that was not the case and that her hiring caused somewhat of a controversy, as she was chosen over some candidates with more experience. Amos opined that it was Johns’ success that helped get her the job, but, in the end, Roy and Chislett had tremendous faith in her ability to do the job and lobbied hard for her to fill it.
She worked that first season, 1979, as the associate artistic director so she could learn the ropes and understand what it takes to be in the position.
Among her first challenges was learning how to do the books and the financial side of running a theatre, which she says has served her well over the years - not many artistic directors are well versed in the financial and practical sides of things and she had that foundation.
Humbly, she says she was tremendously lucky and surrounded with hard-working, talented people as she took over the reins of the Festival, but, between 1979 and 1984, the Festival found great success, producing some of its biggest and most revered shows. Peter Colley’s I’ll Be Back Before Midnight came in 1979, followed by John and the Missus by Gordon Pinsent in 1980 and Quiet in the Land, Tomorrow Box and He Won’t Come in From the Barn in 1981. In 1982, Amos then wrote Down North and Johns and John Roby wrote Country Hearts.
Things at the Festival were booming at that time. People were lined up around the building to buy tickets to shows, productions were often held over and audiences were finding their way to the Blyth Festival. Though, in her final two seasons, Amos was also directing and acting in many of the shows, all while juggling a young family and running the theatre. Soon, it became a bit too much and Amos says she was run off her feet with the work, saying she was simply “too tired” for the job.
She eventually handed over the keys to the kingdom to Katherine Kaszas, who would serve as the artistic director from 1985 to 1991. Meanwhile, Amos headed east and serve as the artistic director of Theatre New Brunswick from 1984 to 1988.
The large touring theatre was busy, but different than the Blyth Festival and Amos said the move was hard on Johns and the older of their two children. The theatre wasn’t really producing the kinds of plays that Johns would write and perform, but Amos said it was a good job, all told.
Then, 10 years after she had bid farewell to the Festival, she returned to a very different situation than the one she left behind.
Kaszas had grown the Festival substantially and shepherded it throughout some of its most successful years, producing hits like Another Season’s Promise by Roulston and Chislett in 1986, John Roby and Raymond Storey’s Girls in the Gang, Kelly Rebar’s Bordertown Café in 1987, Robert Clinton’s The Mail Order Bride in 1988 and Dan Needles’ The Perils of Persephone in 1989.
However, when Peter Smith took the torch from Kaszas, the annual offering swelled, along with costs, and the audiences shrunk. Amos estimates that, at her height, Kaszas was drawing in excess of 42,000 patrons per season. Compare that to the 17,000 or so who were attending shows in the early 1990s when Smith was producing six shows per season, as opposed to the traditional four (sometimes five, including a remount to end the season).
The Festival amassed tremendous debt at this time and was borrowing from local businesses, families and even the county. Amos said the Festival didn’t have a line of credit at the time, so it was debt, rather than a deficit - an important, and more severe, distinction. In a speech she gave for the Festival’s 40th anniversary, Amos said the Festival amassed operating deficits of over $200,000 for two straight years, in addition to the building debt of $350,000.
“By 1993, the theatre was broke. Bills could not be paid. The Canada Council and Ontario Arts Council funding was in jeopardy,” she recalled in that speech.
She said that returning to the Festival during that time, was “hell” but she so loved the Festival that she knew she wanted to do whatever it took to help turn things around and make it successful.
Tough decisions had to be made upon her arrival. The 1994 season was scaled back tremendously after the Festival’s board of directors chose not to renew Smith’s contract. Amos said she cut the budget in half and had to terminate a number of hard-working people who didn’t deserve to be let go, but that the Festival was in survival mode and difficult decisions had to be made.
Those who were left, she said, worked like dogs. They worked nights, weekends and more for little pay, but they were motivated to save the Festival from ruin.
Those early months, she said, were the product of a staff and a board of directors that were willing to pull up their sleeves and work for the Festival, doing whatever was in their power to pull the Festival from the brink of disaster.
Board members like Marian Doucette and Duncan McGregor deserved a lot of credit, as does the rest of the board, she said, while top-of-the-line fundraisers like Sheila Richards, Betty Battye and Lynda McGregor (then Lentz) were pulling in money from wherever they could find it, all to benefit the Festival.
Amos opened the 1994 season with Glengarry School Days by Chislett and brought Johns in to revisit his beloved He Won’t Come in From the Barn, which would eventually be held over that season. Selling out that He Won’t Come in From the Barn run, Amos said, helped to provide cash flow for the Festival - bills could be paid and the organization had money in the bank again.
In the seasons that followed, Amos returned to some time-honoured pieces that she knew had connected with Blyth Festival audiences in the past in the hopes that they might once again.
The Tomorrow Box, Jake’s Place and He Won’t Come in From the Barn returned for the 1995 season, followed by Paul Thompson’s return with Barndance, Live! in 1996 - a landmark hit for the Festival that returned in 1997. Also that season, Amos remounted Quiet in the Land and produced Booze Days in a Dry County by Paul Thompson and There’s Nothing in the Paper by David Scott.
In four years, Amos turned hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt into a surplus in excess of $100,000 and the path was again set for the Festival to succeed for the forseeable future, handing the artistic director position off to co-founder Anne Chislett in 1998.
Amos is credited by many as the person who saved the Blyth Festival and for that reason she is among the most beloved artistic directors the Festival has ever had. More than that, however, she is revered as a member of the community in a way that few others who held the position are. Her children went to school in Blyth, the family kept a home near the village for many years and Amos was named The Citizen’s Citizen of the Year in 1997 - the only Festival artistic director to ever receive that honour.
She says, even today, that Blyth feels like a second home to her. She was quoted in the 1990s as saying that Blyth was her “favourite place” and that she was always happy to return. She and Johns remain enthusiastic supporters to this day, remaining passionate and engaged with the work of the Festival, willing it to succeed from afar.
Amos, Johns and the rest of the creators of The Farm Show have been the subject of much praise this season, which has seen the remount of the beloved Canadian classic. However, Amos was last in Blyth professionally 10 years ago when the Festival celebrated its 40th season under newly-minted Artistic Director Marion de Vries. She directed the Canadian classic Billy Bishop Goes to War, which starred J.D. Nicholsen and Marek Norman.
As mentioned, that season, Amos delivered the keynote address at the anniversary gala before opening night, spanning the history of the Festival, recounting her time here and celebrating those who came before her. To end her address, she recalled words written to her and the rest of what she called the “20th year saviours” from Roulston, looking back at what was, at times, a challenging 20 years, but looking ahead to another 20 years with hope, optimism and appreciation.
“The importance of your work goes beyond anything that can be measured - beyond the frustrations you inevitably suffered, beyond any money raised. Your work was and is the foundation upon which the next 20 years can be built. You have worked very, very hard, but your efforts are appreciated and very, very worthwhile.”
In the 1990s, Roulston wrote those words to thank Amos for all she had done and in 2014, Amos volleyed those words back at Roulston to thank him for all he had done.
In the early 1990s, amid a recession and a rapidly changing entertainment landscape, the Festival faltered and neared its premature end. The people of Blyth and the theatre-lovers of Canada are forever indebted to Amos for righting the ship.