World premiere of "The Pigeon King" opens Friday, Aug. 11, at Blyth Theatre

The world premiere of "The Pigeon King" is the third show on the Blyth Festival Theatre's playbill this summer and tells the tale of Arlan Galbraith, the self-proclaimed Pigeon King who was convicted of fraud in a Waterloo court and sentenced to seven years for his preposterous Pigeon Ponzi scheme.

Opening Friday, Aug. 11, the show is a collaboration, featuring original music all created by The Company. Directed by Severn Thompson, it is a country parable for our times, reminding us that what takes flight always comes home to roost.
 
When Galbraith created his company, Pigeon King International, he boasted some 50 years as a top breeder. He was a member of the Canadian Racing Pigeon Union, the Canadian National Tippler Union, the National Birmingham Roller Club, and even the charter president of the Saugeen Valley Fur and Feathers Fanciers Association. When he announced he'd bred his own distinct line of high-performance racers, Strathclyde Genetics, few of his friends doubted his downy coronation.
 
But around 2001, Galbraith began approaching local farmers and neighbours asking them to invest in a piece of the royal action. Claiming to have access to lucrative pigeon-racing markets in Saudi Arabia and throughout the Middle East, the Pigeon King began to sign 10-year contracts with guaranteed profits for buyers of his breeding pairs, promising to personally buy back all of the chicks.
 
Over the next seven years, Pigeon King International became a massive empire, worth tens of millions of dollars, with farmers from both sides of the border investing in the company, mortgaging century farms, and hatching hundreds of thousands of birds, only to collapse in a bankruptcy-filing of epic proportions, a fraud conviction, and time behind bars.
 
"The Pigeon King" is created and performed by The Company: Rebecca Auerbach, Jason Chesworth, Gil Garratt, George Meanwell, J.D. Nicholsen, and Birgitte Solem, along with Gemma James Smith and director Thompson.
 
Thompson has a long history with the Blyth Festival, most recently performing in the 2015 production of Seeds. In 2013, she directed and co-created "Beyond The Farm Show," as well as the previous year's "The Farm: 2012" for the Young Company. Other directing credits include the 2017 Dora award-winning "Peter Pan" (Bad Hats Brewery Tour) and "Madam Mao" (SummerWorks).

As an actor, Thompson has appeared in plays across the country as well as on television. Last winter, she toured the play, "Elle,' which she adapted and performed, to Waterford, Vancouver, and Winnipeg. In 2016, "Elle" received a Dora nomination for outstanding new play. Thompson is also Blyth Festival's associate artistic director.
 
"The Pigeon King" runs Aug. 11 to Sept. 23. Reserve your seats for this fascinating story by calling the Box Office at 519-523-9300, toll-free at 1-877-862-5984 or on-line at blythfestival.com.