Each of the photos represents one of the three different shows in our summer season and were shot at three different locations in the County.

I’ll Be Back Before Midnight, was shot at none other than Macaulay Heritage Park in Picton. We were given access inside the  historic 18th century home and to the grounds of the old St. Mary Magdalene Parish Cemetary.

Tempting Providence,  was shot at the cliffs and the shores of the island to give the image the whole Newfoundland/maritime essence the show has.

And last,  Amelia was shot at Picton’s very own historic airbase, CFB Picton. The deteriorating surroundings and hauting atmosphere of the retired airbase was the perfect place to capture our aviatrix.

Check out Rene Dick’s blog (from Scout Design) for his behind the scene photos from the shoots!

Performances will not be cancelled due to inclement weather. In the event of rain, an old-fashioned “radio play” performance will take place in the church located on the grounds.

Tickets may be exchanged in advance of the performance. Please refer to our Terms and Conditions for details.

Photo Credit- www.michaelgrillsphotography.com L to R- Courtenay Stevens, Christine Brubaker

Leanna Brodie

Leanna Brodie is an actor, writer, and translator. Her plays include For Home and Country, The Vic, and Schoolhouse (all published by Talonbooks Ltd.), as well as the CBC radio dramas Invisible City and Seeds of Our Destruction. Brodie was recently in New Zealand for the premiere of The Angle of Reflection, her chamber opera with composer Anthony Young, produced by the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra. This season, she is Playwright-in-Residence at the 4th Line Theatre, working on The Book of Ruth, a play about gay activists and rural evangelicals. Schoolhouse, the second offering in Festival Players’ 2009 season, has previously been seen by over 20,000 Canadians in multiple sold-out runs.

We recently caught up with Brodie in Montreal, where she is workshopping her English translation of Louise Bombardier’s Ma mère chien. Brodie hasn’t quite worked out what the new title will be, as the literal translation “My Mother Dog” evokes perhaps a different reaction than Bombardier had intended.

“Titles are hard, ” says Brodie. “Schoolhouse was never meant to be called that. The play went very rapidly from workshop to first draft and Schoolhouse was the working title.” Blyth Festival Artistic Director Eric Coates called her shortly thereafter to say they wanted to debut the play for the 2006 season. The phone call came only weeks before Brodie was due to be married. By the time she returned, the advertising materials were complete, with “Schoolhouse” slotted into the programming.

Turns out it was an unexpected blessing. “A new play is always a risky proposition. It’s an unfamiliar thing, and audiences want to know what they will be seeing,” says the playwright. “People responded to the ‘truth in advertising’. Schoolhouse did so well for Blyth that I couldn’t change the title after that”.

The Festival Players run is scheduled to play outdoors at the historic Macaulay House in Picton. Brodie says that the play was very deliberately written with an eye to being performed indoors in a theatre or in the open air.

“Because Blyth and 4th Line [a theatre company with an external stage only] were interested in the project at the same time, I looked for every opportunity to move the action in the play outdoors from time to time, to create that outdoor space.”

She finds open-air shows to be particularly fun because one becomes so aware of the audience as these performances often begin in the daylight hours. “There’s a ripple of pleasure in older audience members when the characters start playing Anti-I-Over. They recognize the game, and maybe haven’t thought of it in over 50 years,” says Brodie.

She’s found it to be a really gratifying experience watching whole families enjoy the show on different levels. Certainly there’s an aspect of nostalgia for the older theatre patrons. But younger audience members have also responded to learning what life in rural 1930s Ontario was like. They come away with a better understanding of the lives their grandparents lived.

After conducting many interviews in preparation for writing Schoolhouse, Brodie has discovered that “being a kid hasn’t changed. What’s changed is the amount of freedom and responsibility they had, the amount of completely untracked, unparented time during the day.” The play generates conversations amongst different generations in the family. “They look at grandma in a different way.”

Schoolhouse runs July 22 – August 8 at Macaulay House in Picton. Tickets are now on sale.

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Playwrights Reading This Sunday June 7th

Join Festival Players at 2pm  at Books and Company in Picton, for some good old-fashioned tea and biscuits — and a playwrights reading. Leanna Brodie, author of this season’s second show, Schoolhouse, will read from her charming play, share stories about researching and creating pieces based on rural Ontario history, and her play about Women’s Institutes, For Home and Country. We’ll follow her reading with questions from the audience.

Admission to the Playwrights Reading is free. Light refreshments will be available.

For more information: 613.399.5677 or www.festivalplayers.ca