Blyth Festival's 2016 season features four world premieres

The 2016 season begins June 15 with OUR BEAUTIFUL SONS: REMEMBERING MATTHEW DINNING, by Christopher Morris (June 15 - Aug. 6).

At 23 years young, Corporal Matthew Dinning of Wingham, was killed in Afghanistan. A beloved, charming, and ambitious young man, his death hit the small community hard. A year later, his younger brother, Brendon, volunteered for active service. The Canadian Forces called his parents, Lincoln and Laurie, and asked them how to proceed. Should they decline Brendon's request? Should they assign him duties here in Canada instead? Or should they grant his request, knowing the sacrifice this family had already made for their country? Were the Dinnings prepared to face it all again?
 

Laurie and Lincoln were left to make one of the hardest decisions imaginable for any parent; and this decision is at the heart of Morris' play. It's a story about the love of family, the search for bravery, and the always-complicated paths to manhood, motherhood, and peace. This play is emblematic of what Blyth does best: telling powerful local stories, and giving voice to the region and the nation.
 

Next, it's THE BIRDS AND THE BEES, by Mark Crawford (June 22 - Aug. 6). This is a raucous, hilarious new comedy with huge, honeyed heart.
 

It's nearly time for the last-ever annual Turkey Days Festival and the excitement in town is palpable. Gail is a retired empty-nester, quietly raising bees in solitude, by herself, by her lonesome, all alone, completely unaccompanied ... okay, it's been awhile. Unexpectedly, her grown daughter Sarah returns home; it seems 10 years of artificially-inseminating turkeys has taken a toll on Sarah's sex life and she and her husband are through.
 

As both women set about putting their lives back in order, and reacquainting themselves with living under the same roof, they are visited by an eager, strapping, athletic, young grad student named Ben (who happens to be a virgin). He has come to study the declining bee population ... but things get ... a little extracurricular.
 

Throw in a meddlesome neighbour, some Internet dating, and a pair of tickets to the last Turkey Days Dance of all time, and you have a racy recipe for relentless laughter.
 

The third mainstage show is the world premiere of If Truth Be Told, by Beverley Cooper (July 27 - Sept. 3).

It's the 1970s, and a world famous, award-winning writer moves back to her old hometown, only to discover her childhood friends and neighbours now want her books banned. The local school board rallies to preserve moral order and keep these filthy books out of their classrooms.
 

In her fight against the zealous censors, the writer befriends a teenage girl who is, herself, an aspiring young artist. What follows is a high-stakes lesson in what it means to tell the whole truth, and what it means to tell a good story.   
 

The final show of the mainstage season is THE LAST DONNELLY STANDING, created and conceived by Gil Garratt and Paul Thompson (Aug. 4 - Sept. 3). 

This is the ultimate fiery epilogue to the bloody Biddulph Feud. Of the seven Donnelly brothers, only one was ever sentenced to hard time in prison; only one was ever convicted of "assault with intent to kill and murder" (on a duly deputized police officer no less); only one returned to the charred foundations on the infamous Roman Line to drive his hammer against fresh timbers and rebuild from the ashes: Robert Donnelly.
 

A successful business man in tumultuous times, Robert is known equally for his quick temper as his elegant fashion sense. His family name may have made him an object of scorn in the community, but his own fiery nature solidified his reputation. So notorious was Robert's role in the Biddulph Feud, that Orlo Miller, the authoritative historian on the Lucan terror, remarked in his own research into the arrest warrants of the period that "the Donnelly name had been conspicuously absent from the records since Bob had gone off to Kingston Penitentiary". Even the London Free Times in 1878 described the way he sat on trial for attempting to kill constable Sam Everett, with "a broad grin across his face."
 

When the rest of the family had moved away after the fateful murders of 1880, Robert refused, and instead took up residence in a house on Lucan's main street, pacing his porch as the murderers among them walked those very roads. The Last Donnelly Standing details the rise and fall of a defiant young man, who stood in the face of history, and dared to burn it all down with a smile.
 

A variety of season passes are now on sale with significant savings if you buy before Christmas. Call the Blyth Festival Box Office at 519-523-9300, Toll Free 1-877-862-5984 or online at blythfestival.com

The Blyth Festival is a professional theatre that enriches the lives of its audience by producing and developing plays that give voice to both the region and the country. The theatre produces a repertory summer season of exclusively Canadian theatre, with an emphasis on new work. The Blyth Centre for the Arts, including the Blyth Festival, was founded in 1975.

Blyth Festival acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.