Another season of Norm Foster begins
What to do when you’re a company devoted to the work of Canadian playwright Norm Foster … and seemingly every community theatre in Canada is also doing Norm Foster?
Plan on doing him better than anyone else.
That’s the game plan heading into Season 2 of The Foster Festival, says artistic director Patricia Vanstone. And it starts with the world premiere of Foster’s new show Screwball Comedy, previewing Jun 21 and opening June 24.
“I think audiences will travel for new work, that’s why they’ll come to us,” says Vanstone, who launched the company last year with Foster and executive director Emily Oriold.
“What we want to offer is definitive productions of Norm’s work, with his very careful involvement. As a friend of 34 years, I feel we want to do it the best ever.”
It’s the only company dedicated to the work of Canada’s most prolific and successful playwright, with 150 productions of his plays done internationally every year.
The Newmarket writer has averaged about a new play per year since he scored his first major hit in 1984 with The Melville Boys. One of his most popular plays, On a First Name Basis, launched the company last year, with Foster starring alongside Vanstone.
The inaugural season also included Here on the Flight Path, and the world premiere of Halfway to the North Pole.
Vanstone treated the first year as a “learning curve,” and has made adjustments for the second campaign, including less shows early in the week. A pair of provincial grants totaling $95,000 helped get word out to the U.S. market.
“The press south of the border has been interested in presenting us as a unique, Canadian experience,” says Vanstone.
Screwball Comedy is a classic Foster battle of the sexes, set in a newspaper in 1938. Upset with his star reporter, an editor makes him compete for his job with a budding writer by sending them both to cover a society wedding. The show stars Cosette Derome, Kevin Hare, Darren Keay and Eliza-Jane Scott.
“It’s perfect for Norm’s prowess as a writer,” says Vanstone, who directs all three shows this season. “He loves the lingo.”
While it’s foremost a manic comedy, the show does have a point or two to make about media, which was going through its own upheaval back in the ‘30s.
“As our current media picture is changing drastically, things were changing drastically then,” says Vanstone. “Jeff, the star reporter, says to Mary ‘There’s no room for women in the newspaper world.’ There is that toe-to-toe, when women wanted to be serious reporters.”
The show continues to July 7, then makes way for Foster’s bittersweet Old Love, starring real-life couple Booth Savage and Janet-Laine Green. It runs to July 28.
The second’s second world premiere, Lunenburg, ends the season Aug. 2 to 18, starring Shaw Festival alumni Melanie Janzen, Peter Krantz and Catherine McGregor.
For tickets to The Foster Festival, visit www.fosterfestival.com