​Blyth Festival launches year-end campaign for new play development and to pay local artists

The Blyth Festival has launched its first-ever year-end fund-raising campaign, with the goal of raising $50,000 by Dec. 31, calling on its community — audiences, local businesses, and first-time donors — to help protect the future of Canadian storytelling.

For 51 years, the festival has been Canada’s only professional theatre company dedicated 100 per cent to commissioning, developing, and producing new Canadian work. Now, amid declining public investment and rising costs across the arts sector, the festival is asking its broader community to join its “small but mighty” core of members in ensuring Canadian stories continue to take flight.

“The stories we tell tomorrow depend on what we do together today,” says artistic director Gil Garratt. “What we’ve built here in Blyth isn’t just a summer season — it’s a living record of who we are as Canadians. Every time people give to this festival, they’re helping protect our ability to tell our own stories in our own voices. And right now, those voices need all of us.”

ARTS SECTOR A MAJOR ECONOMIC ENGINE ACROSS CANADA

New research from Business/Arts and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce’s Business Data Lab underscores the urgency. Canada’s arts and culture sector is a major economic engine, contributing $65-billion directly to the country’s economy in 2024 and supporting 1.1-million jobs nationwide. The sector generates 29 times the federal investment it receives, and in Ontario, alone, supports 458,000 jobs and more than $60-billion in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) impact.

Rural communities play an outsized role: nearly one-third of Canada’s arts organizations are located in rural areas, yet they operate with far leaner budgets and fewer staff than their urban counterparts. Blyth is a prime example. Over the past six seasons, the festival generated nearly $30-million in GDP impact, created 358 jobs, and returned significant economic activity to Huron County — with every dollar spent on a ticket generating almost $9 in provincial economic activity.

Yet despite this impact, the report shows that arts funding is declining as a share of federal investment, and that Canadians donate a smaller portion of their income than peer countries. Many arts organizations, especially rural ones, are struggling to keep pace with inflation, production costs, and rising demand for cultural programming.

PROTECTING CANADA’S CULTURAL SOVEREIGNTY

At the heart of the Blyth Festival’s campaign is a message about cultural sovereignty — the idea that a country’s stories are central to its identity and independence.

“In a moment when Canadian culture is being nudged aside by louder, wealthier systems, it matters that we continue to tell our own stories,” says Garratt. “Our stories aren’t a luxury. They’re how we understand who we are — and how we stay connected to one another.”

Funds raised through the year-end appeal will directly support:
 

• Commissioning and developing new Canadian plays
• Paying playwrights, actors, and the many other theatre artisans employed by the festival
• Maintaining the festival’s new play development program - the creative engine behind such works as “The Drawer Boy,” “The Pigeon King,” “The New Canadian Curling Club,” and 2025’s smash hit, Emma Donoghue’s “The Wind Coming Over the Sea.”

AN INVITATION TO THE WHOLE COMMUNITY

While the festival’s membership program continues to grow, this is the first time Blyth has invited its entire community — including those who have never given before — to contribute to the creation of new Canadian theatre.

“Blyth has always been a place where ordinary people work together to do something extraordinary,” says Garratt. “If you can help, even a little, you’re part of ensuring Canada keeps its own voice.”

HOW TO GIVE

Donations can be made on-line at blythfestival.com/support-us/blyth-festival-2025-year-end-appeal/, by mail, or by calling 1-877-862-5984. Gifts made by Dec. 31 will receive a 2025 charitable tax receipt. Blyth’s phones will be staffed until Dec. 21.