Playwright turns his parents’ adventures with grow-op into a stage comedy

DRAYTON — Oddly, playwright Ken Cameron’s folks didn’t mind him writing a play about their experience accidentally renting out the family farmhouse to a lovely couple who immediately turned it into a marijuana grow-op.

And they were OK with actually coming out to see the play where their embarrassment would be played out on stage over and over, like a scene from the movie “Groundhog Day.”

“They’re so trusting,” said Cameron. “Those red flags were apparent in hindsight.”

Cameron’s parents had sold off most of the family farm, retaining just the house which

they thought they’d rent out after moving into a condo in town.

Cameron was, admittedly, upset over the loss of his childhood home but at least they would still own the house. No one had any idea that what transpired in that house in Elgin County would end up the subject of his hit comedy, “Harvest,” which debuted in 2008 at Blyth Festival Theatre and opened at Drayton Festival Theatre on Thursday.

It’s a play that is constantly in rotation and never seems to bore audiences, so his parents will never live their story down but they’ve come to terms with it all.

“It’s amazing, you hear all the news about people getting scammed with phone sales and letters from Nigerian princes and you wonder, ‘How many people do fall for this?’” he said, admitting it’s easy to be on the outside looking in and judging the naivety of people, but when it’s happening to you, or in this case parents, it’s a totally different story.

In the play, his parents’ names are fictionalized to Charlotte and Allan, a couple who were trusting and openminded, never questioning when their new tenant introduced his male partner, Razor, a name that should have tipped them off. Their tenant convinced the couple he was a WestJet pilot.

Cameron would hear about the issues his parents were having through phone calls, the often hilarious conversations burning into his memory and eventually forming into a script. “I’d listen with sympathy,” he said. Didn’t his parents ever visit the house?

“Like the characters in the play, they didn’t want to be underfoot,” he said. “They were being helpful.”

The other characters in the play — nosy church ladies, a Hungarian neighbour, real estate agent, insurance agent — are all compilations.

In the meantime, their tenant was filling the house with marijuana plants which ended up destroying much of the building.

“They were very pleased to let me do it,” said Cameron. “They were kinda flattered.”