A MASTER AT STORYFEST
When October arrives in the little corner of the universe we call Hudson, there are two things you know for certain. You know the frost is on the pumpkin. And you know that StoryFest, the Greenwood Centre’s autumnal homage to writers, readers and storytellers, has once again got folks buzzing.
Of course, with the month half over, many of StoryFest’s programs have already come and gone. But rest assured: Plenty more great stuff still lies ahead.
Perhaps the most anticipated, at least by habitués of Hudson Village Theatre, will be a visit on Tuesday from Norm Foster, Canada’s busiest playwright.
Foster is the creator of more than 40 works, all of which have stirred audiences clear across Canada, ensuring sold-out houses everywhere. He writes comedy, but it is the serious moments that give his material punch.
As he told one interviewer, “The farces are a lot of fun to write, but it’s the stories that touch an audience’s heart as well as its funny bone that are the most rewarding.”
Here in Hudson, Foster fare has been a staple of summer theatre for years, as season after season the hits have just kept coming. In 2011, his play Skin Flick was such a success, Village Theatre extended the run by an additional two weeks. Foster’s most recent Hudson production was Ned Durango Come to Big Oak, last August.
Next Tuesday, however, there will be no script, no actors, simply Norm Foster himself, alone on stage. This time, the audience gets to experience his art, not through characters he created, but directly from the source.
No matter how you look at it, Foster’s one-of-a-kind leap out from the wings and onto the proscenium stage is not to be missed, especially for anyone familiar with his work — or the Hudson stage on which he is so frequently showcased.
However, the Norm Foster evening is not the only delight still awaiting StoryFest visitors. Indeed, Wednesday at 2 p.m., novelist Elizabeth Hay, a Giller Award winner for her recent Late Nights on Air, will be the festival’s special guest for afternoon tea, literary style, at the Hudson Community Cen- tre. Join her if you can.
Next Monday evening is reserved for Ami McKay, the U.S-born, Nova Scotia-based bestselling author of The Virgin Curse who came, she says, to Canada out of love.
StoryFest wraps up in November with Theatre Panache’s production of Mrs. Dexter and Her Daily, a new Canadian play by Joanna McClelland Glass, featuring two well-known and beloved Hudson actors, Heather Markgraf and Christine Davet.
In all, the 2012 festival will have presented 11 events, several offered in conjunction with partner associations. Participating authors, apart from those already mentioned, also included Wayson Choy, Jeffrey Simpson, Lauren B. Davis and Sally Armstrong. Then there were the poets — Ian Keteku, Oana Avasilichioaei and Elizabeth Paris Sea; the film Payback, based on Margaret Atwood’s book; and local storytellers spinning tales from home.
Judging from this complex and eclectic listing, the strength of StoryFest clearly lies in the breadth of its offerings, and the depth and detail of its organization.
Led by Audrey Wall, Greenwood’s current executive director, and StoryFest co-ordinator Jane Havard, and supported by an ever-expanding cadre of enthusiastic partners, organizers, volunteers and patrons, the festival abounds with creative energy and rollup-your-sleeves grit. Without these, it simply could not survive.
Nevertheless, such co-operative spirit is not foreign to Hudson. Back when the town was still a somnolent country village, townsfolk had little choice but to band together to get things done. They were so successful that today the tradition of drawing on our own resources to enhance community life is pretty well established fact.
Which, as the Greenwood’s Centre’s StoryFest so powerfully illustrates, is a very good thing.