The Blyth Festival Podcast
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The Blyth Festival Podcast
Why is Everyone Laughing? Inside Dry Streak with Leeann Minogue and Kate Lynch
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The opening-night audience for Dry Streak laughed so hard, playwright Leeann Minogue kept leaning over to host Joanne Wallace asking, “What is up with this audience?”
We thought we'd investigate.
Join Joanne, Leeann and director Kate Lynch for a joyful behind-the-scenes conversation about Dry Streak, Blyth’s laugh-out-loud comedy set on a Saskatchewan farm during the devastating drought of the late 1980s.
If that sounds like it shouldn't be funny, you're right. But trust us. It is.
Along the way we’ll explore the real events that inspired the play, how Kate and her cast built one of the funniest families to ever grace the Festival stage, and why audiences from downtown Toronto to rural Ontario keep saying exactly the same thing:
"I'm Kate."
If you've already seen Dry Streak, you'll love this peek behind the curtain.
And if you haven't ... well, what are you waiting for?
Tickets on sale now!
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Credits
Producer/Host: Joanne Wallace
Sound Design/Engineering: Jim Park
Music: The Streak (in the style of Ray Stevens), Karaoke Legends, via Stagesound Karaoke; Theme: Gotta Give Me Something, River Run Dry, via Epidemic Sound; Mix It Up, Paul McLinden; Little Stars, D.T. Phillips, Gentleman, Max Brodia; all via Shockwave Sound.
Hi, I'm Joanne Wallace. Welcome to the Blyth Festival podcast, presented by Tuckersmith Communications Co-op. Those of you of my vintage may remember the streaking craze of the 1970s, forever immortalised in the novelty song we just heard. So it should come as no surprise we're here today to talk about Saskatchewan playwright Leanne Minogue's laugh-out-loud comedy*Dry Streak* The play takes us to rural Saskatchewan during a devastating drought in the late 1980s. Here, the Richards family is struggling to keep their farm going, and then their eldest son arrives home with his new girlfriend, Kate, a city-dwelling punk rock vegetarian who's about to find herself in a world very different from her own. Before long, the entire town is upside down, and if you want to know what role streaking could possibly play in this, you'll have to come and see it. To whet your appetite, I'm joined here today by playwright Leanne Minogue and the play's director Kate Lynch. Leanne, when she's not writing plays, actually does run a grain farm in Saskatchewan. She's also a busy and respected agricultural journalist. Kate Lynch is a well-known Canadian film, television, and stage actor. She's also a writer and a director who is delighted to be back at Blyth for the first time in several years. Let's get to it, Leanne, Kate. Welcome to the podcast, and thank you so much for being here.
Kate Lynch:It's a pleasure.
Leeann Minogue:Thanks for having us,
Joanne Wallace:Leanne. I want to start with opening night because I was delighted to be sitting beside you in the audience, and every few minutes you kept leaning over and saying something like, "What is up with this audience? Because they just they just wouldn't stop laughing. So, can you tell me what was that experience like for you?
Leeann Minogue:Oh, it was fantastic. I've seen this play before in the theatre. This is a new version, but I have seen this this play before, and they never laugh in the first few scenes. They're sort of the audience is usually sort of settling in, seeing if they're going to like it. But your audience in Blyth, they were laughing out loud from minute one. They must have really come to have a good time.
Joanne Wallace:I think they really did, and they really did have a good time. Kate, I want to ask you what what your impression is of that was of that opening night. But first, I want to say something to our listeners. We're going to be talking about two Kates today. One of them is a director here in our studio, and the other is, of course, the punk rock vegetarian girlfriend at the centre of this play. And I am going to do my best to keep them straight for you. So, Kate here in the studio from your director's chair, could you feel that energy coming back to you from the audience too?
Kate Lynch:Oh yeah, I'm not new to the Blyth audience, and I know how they love theatre. They really do, and they do come prepared for a good time. However, Leanne's play is real funny, so it didn't surprise me that they were laughing so much. Her characters are very funny, and then we're lucky enough to have terrifically funny actors. And I think that having Robin Craig and Ben Campbell kick off the show just let the audience know right away that this was really going to be fun.
Joanne Wallace:I think that's probably a great observation. We're going to talk about Robin and Ben and the rest of the cast in in our second half. But was there a moment for you that you thought, aha, we've really got them?
Kate Lynch:Well, you know, we had two previews, and they went so well that I I I think we were quite relaxed on opening night. It had gone so wonderfully, particularly the night before our second preview, and so no, I would say we we learned in our previews how how funny this play is and how much the audiences love
Joanne Wallace:it, Leanne. I'm always fascinated to ask this
question:where writers get their ideas. And I know you've told me this story before, but can you share for our listeners how it was that you found yourself writing Dry Streak in the first place?
Leeann Minogue:Well. The reason I decided to write a play at all came from my friend. I live on a farm in southeast Saskatchewan, and she lives about an hour from me. And she somehow found herself on her small town's dinner theatre committee, choosing the play. And she read a lot of plays, and she said they're all set in New York, or they're based on a French story, and no one knows what they're talking about. And I realised there's not a lot of rural comedies, and there's a lot of dinner theatre in Saskatchewan. Almost every small town puts on a dinner theatre with great home cooked food. And I thought I should write something that would fix her problem, and so, so my brain was kind of open to ideas when my friend, that is an agronomist, was travelling in Australia, and there was a drought going on in Australia at that time, and she came home with this story of these women in a coffee shop that had said that if the drought would break, they would all run down the street of town naked, and no one ever gave me a follow up. I've been trying to find out. I don't think they actually did it, but it's Australia. Probably the drought never broke.
Joanne Wallace:Either that, or they just did it, and it wasn't newsworthy enough.
Leeann Minogue:Well, it was Australian. Maybe that just happens.
Joanne Wallace:Kate, well, let me ask you this because I I know you're in Toronto. What like have you ever lived in the prairies?
Kate Lynch:Oh no, I have not. Okay, so
Joanne Wallace:so what did you need to understand about prairie life in order to direct this play, and and how did you acquire that knowledge.
Kate Lynch:I'll tell you one of the things I really respect about this play is the tone is light comedy, and it's very funny. But the underlying issues that the characters are facing are actually quite serious, and you don't always encounter that in light comedies. And it allowed myself and the actors to really dig in, and those were issues like a drought and what that means. And apparently, the 1988 drought in the prairies was really serious. So that means people losing their livelihoods if the farm goes under and their homes. The issue. issue of inheritance, which is always important around farms, who's going to take over the family farm? Is it the right person? Is it the wrong person? Does anyone want to? Would be very hard to give up a third generation farm because none of your children wanted to take it over. And then the other issue was the the community rink, and that's really important too in any small community. So that's those are the things I wanted to chat with Leanne about. And Joanne,
Leeann Minogue:by the time Kate was done thinking this through, I think she understood the impact of the community rink on the surrounding area better than I did.
Joanne Wallace:I I think maybe we should just mention for for our listeners that this community rink issue is the skating rink in the community is going to have to close down because I think the generators have have have quit and there's not enough money in the town kitty to to buy new ones, because although it doesn't sound all that important when we first as we're talking about it today, but it is kind of the inciting event that drives the the kind of frenzy in the second act of the show, because the sister, the daughter in the in the family, is trying to find a way to to keep this rink alive because she knows how important it is to the community. And I don't know whether I can even talk about what she does to try and raise money to do this, but it is absolutely hilarious, and it's a real sort of nail biter as we get into the end of the play to find out what's going to happen. But Leanne, what inspired that particular piece?
Leeann Minogue:I've I've never been asked that before, but I grew up near a very small town where the rink was the only place to go, like the only open public building, so I'm very familiar with being in the rink for all kinds of small town events. And even now, my brother lives across the street from the rink in his small town, and his three kids are running. Well, four are running across the street constantly. The boys are skating, and the little girls wandering around to see. She's three to see if anyone knows her there, and they'll pick her up and get her a hamburger. It's it's just it's the place where their whole family is all winter if you're looking for them. All
Joanne Wallace:right, I wanted to sort of pivot a little bit and talk a little. Bit about the characters because I think our listeners will really enjoy some of these stories about some of the characters they'll meet when they come to see this show, and I want to start with this, Leanne. Something. Well, actually, first let me say we're in a story where it's a farm family, and then into this family comes this stranger, right? This punk rock vegetarian girlfriend who comes home with the eldest son, who's coming back to help out his dad with the farm in this drought, and her name is Kate, as I mentioned, and she's you know very very different from the other people in the cast, but she's quite lovely. But she she does certainly inspire change, not just in the family, but probably in the town as well. Something fascinating happened to me at the opening night after party. I had two completely different women came come up to me independently and say exactly the same thing. They said, "I'm Kate. So, right. One of them had grown up in Kitchener, Waterloo, and and married a fellow whose family was located in I think Teeswater, and the other one grew up in Toronto, like right downtown, and moved to Goderich after the pandemic. So they both saw themselves in Kate. So, did you ever imagine that Kate would resonate that way?
Leeann Minogue:I'm glad she does, and I'm glad people see that because I think, as much as Kate is kind of unique and a fish out of water in a small town, every small town believes that they're unique. So it's it's fun that both sides see themselves as unique.
Kate Lynch:You said something interesting to me, Leanne, that surprised me. You said you were Kate,
Leeann Minogue:and not as Kateish as Kate because I grew up on a farm. But I did escape to the city for oh maybe a decade before I went
Kate Lynch:back. Ah, okay, right.
Joanne Wallace:I've had other people come up to me and say of Peter, the patriarch, "Oh, that's my dad, or my uncle, or whatever, or the sister Denise I was just talking about, the young woman who's trying to save the rink. Oh, that's my sister. She's so bossy. Like, what? Why? Why do you think these characters feel so familiar, even to people who've never lived on a farm. Leanne, I guess I should say I'm asking you this.
Leeann Minogue:I don't know how to answer that, other than everyone knows a Peter. My personal Peter is is actually a real person, and he has seen the play, and he still speaks to me. So it's all fine.
Joanne Wallace:Did did he know when he came out that it was him on stage?
Leeann Minogue:Well, okay, this is a really close friend. This is her dad, and I I don't know what subconsciously I guess I didn't really realise I had done that. Then it it's but it's it's also a lot of other men I know. It's a mix of kind of the farmer mentality, and farmers are evolving really quickly right in front of my eyes. So if Peter was set today, he'd be a little different. But those were the'80s, and that's that's how Peter was, and Peter really hasn't changed. And I still really love getting together and hearing what he has to say about things.
Kate Lynch:Do you know, Leanne? I don't think I told you this, but well, I didn't grow up on a farm. My mother did, outside of Pickton, Ontario, and so I found Pete a lot like my grandfather and my uncles. That kind of taciturn, and yet with a twinkle in the eye, character. I heard when when it was intermission, and we were all downstairs at the theatre on opening night. Have they served coffee and wine and some food? And a woman leaned over a table of people, and she said, "That's you, you know, Herb. That's you up there. And they all burst out laughing. laughing.
Joanne Wallace:Kate, actually, I think.
Leeann Minogue:Oh, sorry. I was just going to say, I think those those men were kind of raised to not show much emotion and to keep their feelings to themselves, and we're not talking about that. And I think that's just how it was. Yeah, and I agree.
Joanne Wallace:When we come back after the break, actually, I'm going to ask you you both some questions about the the marvellous Benedict Campbell and how he embodied this character. Because yeah, he he plays everything like he plays the surface and he plays everything underneath. So, but anyways, Kate, first I wanted to ask you this. I think one of the joys of this production is that like from the moment the lights come up, this family feels like they've been living together forever, right? Like you said, the top of the show is is Olive and and Pete, and you know they are an old married couple. How do you create you as the director? How do you create that kind of shared history in a rehearsal hall?
Kate Lynch:Ah, it's I'm feeling like a fraud again because I had two of my favourite actors in the world, Robin Craig and Ben Campbell, and you know they take care of about 97% of their own performance, and then I step in for 3% I give them like a a cheap gag they could play here and there. I do. I will say I think that talking to everybody first about the importance of the issues really helped. So there's a moment at the beginning when Pete gets very frustrated about the situation on the farm, and he doesn't know if anything's going to grow out there, and because Ben is just a great intuitive actor, he just naturally walked up stage and looked out the window. And Robin, who's also a great intuitive actor, found herself compelled to just also walk up and look out the window, and they just they held that moment, and it was it's quite beautiful, I think, and it brings them together as a couple.
Joanne Wallace:Yes,
Kate Lynch:in that moment, and and that's that's just good actors.
Leeann Minogue:I'd like to barge in and add that they were really helped out by the props and the set and the costumes because I have no idea where you people found my aunt's dining room wallpaper.
Kate Lynch:Ooh, that's good. Steve Lucas would love that. He's the designer.
Joanne Wallace:Yeah, Steve. I'm sure that
Leeann Minogue:came right out of my aunt's farmhouse.
Joanne Wallace:Ben and Olive are certainly amazing, but so is the rest of this cast. And I want to talk more about them when we come back. We're going to take a quick break here now, but everybody, stay with us. We are going to take a deeper dive into the rest of the characters you'll meet when you come to see Dry Streak, and also I'm going to talk about why this particular family seems to resonate with audiences from all over the country, stay with
Unknown:us.
Joanne Wallace:Tickets are on sale right now at www.blythfestival.com. I'll leave that address and the box office number in the show notes for you below. There's so much more to come, but first I need to thank our exclusive communications partner, Tuckersmith Communications Co-op. TCC is a full-service telecom provider serving all of Huron County, and we are so grateful for their support, and not just of this podcast, but of our member newsletter and several other ways we stay connected with you. TCC also provides all our internet services, and it's a lot-not just in our office and in the theatre, but in all the billets, apartments, rental spaces, etc. that we need to house our actors every summer, so thank you to the good folks at TCC. The Blyth Festival is a not-for-profit arts organisation, and everything we do is made possible by an amazing community of supporters. That includes TCC, but it also includes you, whether you're a donor, a member, a sponsor, a volunteer, or somebody sitting in the audience helping to bring our work to life. This work exists because of you. Thank you for making it possible. Welcome back. I'm speaking with playwright Leanne Minogue and director Kate Lynch about the production of Dry Streak running at the Blyth Festival this summer, and we have been talking about the fantastic cast that Kate has assembled, and I want to go straight back to that. We've talked about this extraordinary ensemble led by the wonderful Benedict Campbell, but can we go back and talk a little more about what it was about this particular group of actors that allowed this family to feel so authentic and and so funny?
Kate Lynch:First of all, they're extremely talented, and they'll good actress will just do that for you. They'll, especially, it's wonderful to watch actors when they're rehearsing a play where they're a family because they'll start to take on habits and mannerisms that just feel like something a family has built up together, and they were all really good at that.
Joanne Wallace:Yeah, that's a great point you raise about the family dynamics and how it's both in the script and I guess emerged immediately in the rehearsal hall, because the younger cohort in this this cast are just as strong. We've got. Hallie Celine and playing the sister, and she is bossy but also wonderful, and she's got these two twin boys that we never see on stage, but she's always yelling at them out the window, so you get this clear picture of what Hellions they must be, and and Cam Laurie's playing the the the brother who doesn't want to live on the farm and is trying to launch a radio career, and like they're all just fantastic. So, how, like, I guess what, how difficult was it to manoeuvre these people into a family relationship, or did they just arrive in the the rehearsal hall and do it
Kate Lynch:well. Don't forget that a lot of your work is done by the writing, and so right away Leanne had such a feel for these people and for the dynamics. But it is then part of the fun of acting to figure out what your relationship with each person is. A little example was Robin, who plays the the mother of Denise with the the two twins, the terrifying twins.
Joanne Wallace:Yes,
Kate Lynch:Robin decided that most mothers don't feel that their daughters are raising their children as well as they did, and and so she and I've experienced that, and so she she would always play a little exasperated when Denise had to run out and yell at the kids because her Olive never would have had to do that because she would have done a slightly better mothering job. So so that's that's part of the fun of of acting is is filling in.
Joanne Wallace:Leanne, did you write that for for all of the the the part writing? I didn't even
Leeann Minogue:think about it until until I saw it on the stage. I and I haven't seen that with other performances done quite so so nicely. But of course, Kate is right. That's how they work.
Joanne Wallace:Yeah, yeah. Leanne, while we're talking about Olive, the matriarch of this clan, I she has I think one of the most beautiful arcs in the whole play, and you could easily have written her as just you know the farmer's wife, but she's not. She's so much more than that. Was she inspired by anyone?
Leeann Minogue:Well, I'm a farmer's wife, and it's it's funny. I wrote this 20 years ago, so when I wrote it, I was thinking more from Kate's point of view, and now I see it from Olive's point of view. And I certainly don't want to be written off as the farmer's wife that does one thing. I I like to imagine that I have a more rich and detailed life than that. The
Joanne Wallace:dyad I think that fascinates me the most in this play is the Olive Kate relationship. So what I don't know. What do you think Kate awakens in all of
Leeann Minogue:well, I think possibility. I like to think that not just farm wives, but everyone, all of sort of age and space in life. When you realise that someone else is going to be doing your role on the farm or in the family or in the family business, whatever it is, and you kind of have this. You can either be sad and kind of fight the future, or you can look around and see what else can I do when I have all this extra time, and you can have that that whole new adventure if if you're willing to look for it.
Joanne Wallace:And there's this wonderful scenes where we see Olive, because Kate, because of course we're in the '80s, and Kate is you know into alternative music or what was alternative back then. She's got a Sony Walkman, a yellow one, like we all remember. She gives the Walkman to Olive, and then we later hear that Olive has started like exploring this music and enjoying it-it's so wonderful.
Kate Lynch:Leanne, can I can I go back? I loved what you said about you used to see the play through Kate's eyes, and now with the time that's gone by, you're seeing it more through Olive's eyes. I think that's so one of the great things about theatre. I mean, you're seeing it as a writer, and we we also that happens to us as act as audience members, doesn't it? You you know you go see I don't know maybe something like Death of a Salesman or something when you're 30, and then you see it again when you're 50, and it's a quite a different experience. So I love that you had that as a writer.
Leeann Minogue:I don't think it's even necessarily a classic work. I mean, I'm sure it would happen if I read the Sweet Valley High novels. I'd be seeing myself in the mom instead of the twins.
Joanne Wallace:Kate, actually, while we're talking about this, there I want to ask you. This is, I guess, a directing question. There are these two lovely dance sequences that you've. That are not in the script, and they're these small moments, but they say so much about the relationships between the characters, and I think they're so brilliant. Can you describe them for our listeners, and then talk about where they came from?
Kate Lynch:Well, yeah, one of them is the one in the first act is it it really it came from I knew it was going to be a tricky transition because we spent a certain amount of time in the family farmhouse in the dining room kitchen and then we switched to a bar and I thought oh that I bet you that's going to be a bit of a long transition and I wonder what we could do with that moment. So we had an actor in the play, have an actor in the play, Adrian Shepard Gowinski, who I asked Gil Garrett, who's the artistic director, if he would consider Adrian for this role because he's a wonderful actor, and one of the things Adrian's really good at is moving. He's very fluid in his body and and beautiful dancer. It's beautiful to watch. So I wondered if we could have a moment where I'd see a bit of Kate and John, who are the two lovers in the play. Farm boy John has brought home punk rocker Kate, and I just said, Adrian, I I want to play a Tammy Wynette, Stand by Your Man, or favourite. Do you think you could set up the bar while dancing to that song, and eventually Kate will be in, and you could dance with her? And you know, I didn't have to say much more than that. Adrian really put it together.
Joanne Wallace:Oh wow!
Kate Lynch:Yeah, and and people do seem to really like it. It's it's. I think it was a nice enough idea, but it takes an Adrian to really make it work.
Joanne Wallace:So you didn't have a choreographer. He did it himself.
Kate Lynch:No, he did it. What I said to him is, "Look, here's three story points that you should try to hit, and he just did it, and he worked on it on his own. And it won't spoil anything for the audience. It's country dancing, and Kate doesn't know how to do that. She's a punk rocker, so he's sort of showing her the steps. And what's really magical is that Adrian switches up the choreography every night to keep to keep lovely Bronte who plays Kate just to keep her from getting too comfortable in the steps. He just switches it up.
Joanne Wallace:Oh, that's that's incredible! It's it's such a lovely scene. Like I I know I've spoken to you about it before, but you can't take your eyes off him.
Kate Lynch:I know
Joanne Wallace:he's just he's so he's just so charismatic in his movement. So that's that's wonderful. So then there's another sequence where we see Pete and Olive dancing together in the second act. Like, did you like did you mean to bookend them or like what happened?
Kate Lynch:No, I didn't really mean to bookend them, but it was another moment in the play where I thought, gee, I don't want to give too much away to the audience, but something happens here that is so significant. It's hugely important in the story, and I just thought I kind of want some kind of image or something theatrical to allow us to sit in that for for a while in the wonderment and the beauty of
Joanne Wallace:it, Leanne. Do you have anything to add to that? Oh, I wanted to ask you that. Has any other director ever done this?
Leeann Minogue:No, I. In a million years, it would never have occurred to me to have Peter dancing, and I. I really love that. And obviously, something pretty important is going down if Peter is dancing.
Joanne Wallace:I know, but it's so sweet because you see, like the the the old Pete and Olive, and then okay, I'm not going to give anything away, but you see them again at the very end of the play in a moment that's just so charming and very funny. So yeah, I I Kate, I'm sorry, but hats off. You can't feel like a fraud in this one. That was a great piece of directing. No, but
Kate Lynch:okay. Now I'll tell you a story about that. And again, I'm trying not to give too much away. But I mentioned to Leanne. I said, when this significant thing happens, I want to put something there, something very theatrical that will allow us to share in how big this moment is. And Leanne told me a story about something she saw her father do when she was a child, and I went bingo. There we go.
Joanne Wallace:So tell us what it was.
Kate Lynch:Well, I don't know when Mike gives. We can't talk about
Leeann Minogue:this without giving away the the yeah the plot.
Joanne Wallace:Oh no, our audiences are going to have to sign a discourse or a grievance. You'll have to
Kate Lynch:come and see it,
Joanne Wallace:Leanne. I know we've talked a lot about comedy, but was it always like? Did you start out saying, "Okay, I'm going to write a comedy for this dinner theatre, or did you start out going, "Okay, I'm going to write a play about drought and finance?" Pressure and uncertainty, because I don't know whether whether you would naturally think, okay, those two things go together.
Leeann Minogue:Nobody wants to go to dinner theatre and come home crying. No, everyone wants to have a good time, and that might be specific to me because any topic I felt like writing about, I would turn into a comedy, and partly it's because I try to live that way, but also it's because if I can hear the audience laughing, I know they're paying attention.
Kate Lynch:You know, let me tell you something on the something we did in rehearsal because it's on the subject of the fact that it is a comedy, but it has these important underlying issues. It's talking about. I did say to the actors,"We are going to at some point do the Eudine O'Neill version of this play. We're going to
Joanne Wallace:do
Kate Lynch:Death of a Salesman, and we did a whole rehearsal. And I said, "No one is to make me laugh. Nobody ever, not once.
Joanne Wallace:Oh my! What happened?
Kate Lynch:Well, it was really fascinating because they achieved it. No, there was one moment, and I can give it away. I can tell you guys without giving it away to the audience, but it was when they all yell"camra, and I did laugh. But aside from that, it actually works. It you can take this play very seriously. I wouldn't want to. It's not. It's not a play I'd want to see. But you. But it. It holds water, and that told all of us something really important.
Joanne Wallace:Yeah, yeah. The story. The story is solid.
Kate Lynch:The story and the story is serious.
Joanne Wallace:Yeah, but but it's
Kate Lynch:told by a very funny woman.
Joanne Wallace:Kate, what do you hope that audiences are going to be still talking about when they're driving home from the theatre?
Kate Lynch:Okay, I'm going to give my honest answer: the Blyth Festival. I just think it's one of the most magical places in Canada. I tried to explain this recently to an actress up from LA, and she likes theatre, and so she was interested. And I said, this theatre for 50-one years has sat in a town of 800 people in a farming community and produced new Canadian plays, and that shouldn't be possible. They should have gone under 40-eight years ago, and it just keeps on going. And it must be on the third generation of audience. If think about it, 50-one years, and it just gets more and more wonderful.
Joanne Wallace:Well, I will take us back to my opening question, which was to that opening scene where Leanne was leaning over to me and going, what is up with this audience? And I actually said to her,"Welcome to the Blyth Festival. This is the best theatre audience in Canada. And I always
say this:our audience, our members, our donors are the secret to our success. So
Kate Lynch:yeah, it's true. It's so happy.
Joanne Wallace:Yeah, yeah, it is. They're so happy.
Leeann Minogue:Yeah,
Joanne Wallace:Leanne, what do you hope stays with this audience or future audiences long after the laughter has faded?
Leeann Minogue:Well, as Kate says, I hope they remember that they had a good time driving to the
Unknown:live.
Leeann Minogue:Otherwise, maybe they cut me off after driving to Blyth. I got nothing.
Kate Lynch:Okay, Leanne, I'm gonna I'm gonna say it for you because it seems seems to me what you're saying to people is laughter is always available.
Leeann Minogue:Oh, absolutely yes.
Joanne Wallace:Oh, this has been so much fun. Just before we say goodbye, I am going to ask you, you both, if there's anything else you like to say about this first. But I did want to mention something to our listeners, and that is that one of the great pleasures of repertory theatre, which is what we do at Blyth, where we have a company of actors who appear in more than one show, is that audiences who fall in love with this cast on Dry Streak? You don't have to say goodbye to them just yet because most of those actors, sadly, without the wonderful Adrian Shepard-Gwinski, for whom there was no part-they are right now in the rehearsal hall preparing the last mayor of Rusty River, completely different way roles, but I can't wait to see them transform all over again. So, and next time I will be here chatting with playwright David Scott and our very own Gil Garrett, who is directing that production and also had a hand in writing the script. So make sure you tune back in this season and listen to that conversation. Now. Anne, is there anything else you'd like to tell me or our listeners about this production before we say goodbye?
Leeann Minogue:Please go see it, and I hope you have a good time.
Joanne Wallace:Kate, what about you?
Kate Lynch:Please go see it, and you will have a good time.
Joanne Wallace:I think I could just about guarantee that. Thank you both. This has been wonderful.
Leeann Minogue:Thanks, Joanne. Thank you.
Joanne Wallace:That was Saskatchewan-based playwright Leanne Minogue and Toronto-based director Kate Lynch talking about Leanne's revised version of Dry Streak, now open at the Blyth Festival and running until august 16, tickets are on sale now, and you can get yours at www.blythfestival.com. If you've never been to the Blyth Festival, I hope you'll decide to come and visit us this summer. We're in southwestern Ontario, just east of Lake Huron's beautiful west coast beaches. Our season runs from mid June to late September, and we are proud to be the only summer theatre festival in Canada, as insane as this sounds, dedicated entirely to commissioning, developing, and producing new Canadian plays. You will see things here you will not see anywhere else. If you've enjoyed this conversation, please come back and join me for more. We'll be back at least once and hopefully twice this season. Also, if you're a new listener, check out our back catalogue. I have had the privilege of chatting here with an amazing group of Canadian playwrights, directors, and more over the past four seasons, and I would love to share all of that with you. Until then, I'm Joanne Wallace. Thank you so much for listening, and I'll see you in the theatre.