Theatre 2026: Blyth Festival - Last Mayor of Rusty River, Curveball, Dry Streak

After talking about it for years, this is the first year that my husband Rich and I managed to get to the Blyth Festival in Huron County, Ontario. Founded in 1975, this is a theatre festival dedicated exclusively to the creation and performance of original Canadian plays, often with rural or small-town themes and occasionally based on true local stories. The festival runs each year between June through September and offers 5-7 shows for the season. There is usually a “Bonanza Weekend” where most if not all the shows are programmed to run back-to-back with special passes sold for this event. Two venues are used for the festival—the indoor Memorial Hall (Margaret Stephens Stage) and an outdoor space called the Harvest Stage with an open-air stage and a covered canopy for the audience.

Because of other commitments, we were not able to attend the Bonanza weekend this year.  But we did select three shows that would play on Saturday and Sunday and made a four day long-weekend out of it with visits to nearby Goderich (which we used as a home base) and Bayfield along the way.

Our first show was The Last Mayor of Rusty River, a bluegrass musical comedy which had a very promising premise for zaniness and hilarity. To protest the ineffectiveness of longtime incumbent mayor Larry Fletcher and his obsequiously loyal deputy Jerry Jones, two young, up-start councillors (Tina Stackhouse and Tim McCavity) decide to run Captain Whiskers, a cat, as his opponent in the next election. I wondered if it was intentional that Tim's last name was also the name of one of the lead characters in Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats?

The first act of this two-act play sets up the conflict through several council meetings in municipal chambers, held both behind closed doors and open to the press, as represented by reporter Harmony.  The beleaguered clerk Judy Townsend tries in vain to keep decorum. In these meetings, through bluster, bullying and mockery, Fletcher rebuffs any attempts by the younger councillors to discuss important issues like infrastructure, economic growth, or homelessness, which is Tina’s passionate cause. Instead, he focuses on trivial matters such as deciding on a town mascot and tries to hide shady dealings made for his own personal gain. Finally fed up with Fletcher’s incompetence and corruption, Tim declares that he will register his cat Captain Whiskers to run against Fletcher in the upcoming election, since even a cat would do a better job than the current mayor. After this lengthy setup, we are primed for the mockery of an election between a buffoon and a feline.

Instead, the second act takes a tonal shift when Tina decides that she will also run for mayor, making it a three-way race, highlighted by a mayoral debate between the candidates. Suddenly the play becomes very preachy as Tina rails about the plight of the homeless and we feel like we are in a humanities or ethics lecture instead of watching a comedy. Whether intended or not, the character of Fletcher channels our current provincial premier Doug Ford, using his signature catch-phrase “my friends” to preface each sentence and replying with nonsensical doublespeak that never actually answers the questions put before him. Tim’s “interpretation” of what Captain Whiskers had to say produced some funny moments, including the proverbial “cat coughing up of a hairball” joke.  But for the most part, much of the humour felt sapped from the play as it veered from being a satire to trying to make a serious social statement. There were some cute songs sung by actor-musicians who also played the various instruments including piano, drums, guitars, and more. The songs were fun but didn’t really advance the plot to make this a traditional book musical and felt disconnected from the rest of the show. Both Rich and I thought that the play started strongly but waned by the second act and went on a bit too long.

We encountered clever promotional material that hyped up the show before even entering the theatre. There were political signs campaigning for Captain Whiskers found along the streets leading up to Memorial Hall. In the lower-level gallery below the theatre was a polling station where you could vote for Fletcher, Larry (“Experienced, Connected, Probably Knows a Guy) or Whiskers, Captain (“Independent, Curious, Answers to No one…except the Global Tuna Consortium”). We still found this show entertaining to watch, but it did not turn out to be what we expected).

Our next show was based on a true story from the 1950s of women employed at Stratford, Ontario’s Kroehler furniture plant who were part of the company’s softball team. This was during a time when corporate softball and fastball leagues were popular in Southwestern Ontario. After their day jobs assembling furniture, they played competitive baseball at night to packed stands. After a disappointing 1952 season and a slow start with many setbacks in 1953, the Kroehler Girls staged a “legendary” comeback that took them to the regional championships, resulting in their winning both the Provincial Women’s Softball Union Intermediate A and Junior A Championships.

Expanding on the 2021 play “Kroehler Girls!”, Curveball: The Fast-Pitch Ladies from the Factory Floor is a musical that dramatizes this historic achievement. Fictionalized characters, who are amalgamations of real-life players, were developed from extensive research through the archives of the Stratford-Perth Museum.  Some of the stories and dialogue were taken directly from interviews with the original team members.

The cast includes the male coach and six female players who represent the core of the team. There is Honey, the leader and star player who has lost her powerful hitting stroke due to personal issues that become apparent as the show progresses. Doll is the matron of the group with three children to juggle on top of her factory job by day and her baseball job by night. She represents the grit and determination of the players who refused to give up their passion for sports even after marriage. Shack is fierce, abrasive and the most competitive member of the team. Her character is named in honour of Elaine Shackleton, a key member of the 1950s squad. Despite being portrayed as the team’s “sexpot”, Wanda is intelligent, ambitious and determined to break free of traditional women’s roles set by the era’s patriarchal limitations. She dreams of leaving the steno pool to become a saleswoman. Wanda’s sister Georgie is the newcomer to the team, a power pitcher who tries to fit in and win the trust and respect of her teammates. Nora is a dependable player and factory worker who rounds out the core roster and takes part in the game sequences. Finally, James is a bit actor at the newly opened Stratford Theatre where evening performances conflicted with the baseball games that were played at the same time. James becomes a romantic partner for Georgie, thus merging the arts and sports worlds.

This is a heart-felt show about teamwork, camaraderie, “finding your power” and dealing with any “curveballs” that come your way, whether in baseball or in life. It intermixes action-packed sequences from softball practices and games with scenes that delve into the personal lives of the players and their coach, highlighting their hopes, fears and challenges. It also gave historical context to the regional Ontario in the 1950s, reflecting on post-World War II industrial culture, shifting gender roles, the rise of theatre in Stratford, and the start of decline in interest in women’s sports that had become so popular during the war years. 

It was especially fun to watch this show in the open-air Harvest Stage that was decked out with an old scoreboard and faded vintage signs advertising companies of the time including Kroehlers, Canadian Tire, A&P Food Stores, Olin Brown Candies, CJCS 1240 Radio and more.  The composer of the musical played piano at one side of the stage, providing musical accompaniment for tunes that ranged from emotional “I want” songs to upbeat team cheers. Before the show started, the artistic director of the Blyth Festival paid tribute to audience members who were descendants of Kroehler Girls. It was interesting to note that one of the playwrights was Andy Pogson, the nephew of the power-hitting 3rd baseman Marg Syms (née Pogson) on the team.

Our final show was a hilarious comedy that coincidentally starred the entire cast from Last Mayor of Rusty River, plus one additional actor. It was interesting to see all these performers in different roles so soon after watching them in the first show. Dry Streak is set in the fictional town of Stoney Valley, Saskatchewan in 1988 but is based on playwright and grain farmer Leeann Minogue’s real-life experience of living through one of the worse droughts in modern-day prairie history that year while working on her farm in Swift Current Saskatchewan.

The plot focuses on one multi-generational farming family headed by patriarch Peter and his put-upon wife Olive, who is expected to do all the cooking, cleaning and even answering the telephone. They have three children including Denise who is married with rambunctious twin boys (never seen but always getting into trouble), Charlie, the black sheep who spurned farming in favour of a job in radio broadcasting and youngest son John who is returning from the “big city” of Calgary with his new girlfriend Kate. 

This becomes the proverbial “fish out of water” trope as the family strives to accept Kate who is a punk-rock loving, vegetarian and is not interested in marriage and knows nothing about farming or rural life. John was born and bred to be a farmer and wants to take over the farm one day. Big-hearted and ultra-sociable, Kate works hard to fit in and adapt while suffering along with the rest of the community from the stifling heat, dust and lack of rain. One day after having a few too many drinks at a bar, Kate jokes that if it would just rain already, she would run naked down Main Street. Unfortunately, her flippant remark was overheard and reported in the local newspaper and from there things spiral out of control, going national after being picked up by the CBC.

Dry Streak is a wonderful, heartwarming, feel-good story that continues to build and gain momentum until it reaches a hilarious, laugh-out-loud, and thoroughly satisfying twist ending. Structurally, this is exactly how a good play should progress. Of the three shows that we watched, this was by far our favourite and it was so great to end our first Blyth festival on a high note.