August 17, 2006

EDITORIAL

Reflections on arts towns

On a vacation in Canada two weeks ago I really meant to leave thoughts of Yellow Springs far behind, but that’s not what happened. I especially thought of the village when visiting two southwest Ontario towns that have transformed themselves into thriving arts destinations.

Many people know Stratford, Ontario, as the home of the internationally-renown Shakespeare Festival, but fewer might know the story of that festival’s unlikely beginnings. The town was struggling financially 54 years ago when a native son, a 30-year-old journalist with no theater experience, had what others called a “cockamamie dream.” Since Stratford shared the name of Shakespeare’s birthplace, the young man reasoned, why not create a Shakespeare festival? The town had no theater, no actors, no reason anyone else could fathom as to why this idea would fly. But none of that deterred Tom Patterson, who put in a call to London for Tyrone Guthrie, the world’s best-known director of Shakespeare, to invite him to visit. Amazingly, Guthrie came. By this time, Patterson had received blessings from the mayor, and talked the town council into pitching in $125 for seed money. Impressed by the community support he encountered, Guthrie signed on. A year later, the Shakespeare Festival opened its first production with no theater to speak of — the play took place under a tent.

Now, the festival houses four theaters, and about 600,000 visitors a year attend the many world-class plays. The downtown bustles with restaurants, artisan shops and bed and breakfasts, and the festival annually brings in about $145 million to the local economy.

Blyth, Ontario, is much less well-known in the United States than Stratford, but in Canada the tiny burg of 900 souls is the place to go for original Canadian theater. The 30-year-old Blyth Festival also began with a dream; but in this case, three people shared it. A director and his wife, who is a playwright, and the town’s newspaper editor wanted to produce original plays about Canada, and especially plays about rural life in southwestern Ontario. There was only one problem — there were no such plays. So the group set about to write them, and to ask others to do so as well. This year, the Blyth Festival, which brings in $1 million yearly to the tiny town, produced its 100th original Canadian play.

Of course, Yellow Springs already has a long tradition of theater, started more than 50 years ago with the nationally-recognized Theater Under the Stars, a Shakespeare festival at Antioch College. And the tradition lives on, as does the town’s wealth of writers, actors, directors and arts lovers. This year the YS Kids Playhouse sponsored its first Summer Festival, a month-long event which showcased two original plays featuring local children. The YS Kids Playhouse also collaborated with local businesses during the festival, creatively exploring ways that arts groups and businesses could cross-pollinate and benefit from each others’ success. It’s a small step to imagine other local arts lovers adding a whole summer’s worth of theater activities.

I’m not suggesting that Yellow Springs turn into a Stratford, with hundreds of thousands of tourists. But the examples of Stratford and Blyth do offer things to think about. It’s clear that many people want good theater and will travel to see it, and that the economic effects ripple through a whole town. In the cases of both Stratford and Blyth, organizers didn’t have their ducks all in a row when they began — they just went ahead and put on a play, even if just under a tent. And perhaps most inspiring to me, these festivals began with the dream of just a few people — and in a pinch, the dream of only one person will do.

—Diane Chiddister