Blyth Festival 2024: Mark Crawford marks Festival's golden anniversary with one of his own
BY SCOTT STEPHENSON
There’s a plethora of reasons why the world premiere of The Golden Anniversaries already has so much buzz swirling around it, not the least of which is the fact that it was penned by playwright Mark Crawford. Over the past 10 years, Crawford has had three hilarious smash hits debut in Blyth, all three of which left a real impression on Festival audiences. His contribution to the Festival’s 50th season tells the comedic tale of married couple Sandy and Glen Golden, who just so happen to be celebrating their 50th anniversary together. Or at least they’re trying to.
Crawford was kind enough to sit down at The Livery Yard cafe in Stratford over coffee and scones to talk about his new play, the importance of theatre, and what the Blyth Festival means to him.
His life as a playwright started right here in Blyth. “If anyone has an artistic home, which I feel is kind of a nebulous thing, because we’re all contract workers that work some place and then don’t work there for a long time, I feel like Blyth is my playwriting home.” It’s hard to think of a more fitting choice of playwright than Crawford for Blyth’s 50th anniversary - his first play Stag and Doe premiered as part of Blyth’s 40th anniversary season. Crawford is also as emblematic of the Blyth Festival’s mandate and core beliefs as they come. When James Roy, Anne Chislett and Keith Roulston founded the Blyth Festival in 1975, they did so with the singular mission of producing and developing local Canadian plays. Growing up on a farm near Glencoe, Ontario, Crawford had always had an interest in telling the stories of rural life. The Blyth Festival was the place where he got his chance. “Anywhere, it’s important to see yourself, hear your stories, and be live in a room with other people who are from your community. To congregate together, for storytelling. That is a thing that we’ve always done, since the beginning of time. I think, in a way, that’s what Blyth represents: that coming together of a community to hear its own stories.”
In 2014, when Stag and Doe hit the stage, the audience really responded to his writing. “Audiences in Blyth, they don’t hold their cards close to their chest... they say ‘let’s meet in the middle.’ The expectation is to have a good time.” After Stag and Doe, things changed for Crawford. “Ten years ago, in Blyth, I first considered myself to be a writer, so this is my own little milestone. Now, I’ve been around the block, and I have a better sense of what will work, but every time, it’s a new thing.” His goal is for The Golden Anniversaries to resonate with the Blyth audiences. “They will laugh a lot, hopefully. And be surprised by the play. I want multiple things to happen.”
There are fewer and fewer opportunities in the theatre world for new or emerging playwrights to see their work come to life with the level of production quality that Blyth is known for, and Crawford knows, first-hand, how meaningful an experience it can be. “I love that theatre, and I love what it stands for. It’s Canadian plays, and speaking to that audience in a very direct way, you don’t get that everywhere, as a writer. Or as an actor. There’s that sort of immediacy of being able to tell a story to a community that is actually relevant to them. That’s what keeps me coming back. And the calibre of the work and the calibre of the artists that Blyth attracts means, as a writer, I’m able to premiere work there with this level of actor and director and stage manager and designer, which is very appealing.”
In addition to being a writer, Crawford is also an actor - last summer, he performed in Chronicles of Sarnia. He feels like being on both sides of the page makes him better at both. He appreciates the agency he has as a writer to create something, but also gets to experience the camaraderie of being an actor, as writing is often a solitary pursuit. He’s also found a deeper understanding of each through the other. “I think I come at writing as an actor, and on the flip-side, I think being a writer makes me appreciate good writing, as an actor.”
Crawford, as the author of The Golden Anniversaries, is the only person who can really answer the question everybody’s asking - did he write this play specifically for the Festival’s 50th anniversary season? He did not! “I wasn’t like, ‘Oh, I should write a 50th anniversary play for Blyth’s 50th anniversary!’ The stars just aligned, that it could happen this season. I just asked myself ‘Could I write a play about two people and their relationship? I was inspired to write a story about a couple that’s been together for 50 years. We don’t always look at long-term love.”