{"id":4390,"date":"2016-09-01T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-09-01T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oafdn.ca\/?p=4390"},"modified":"2022-02-12T04:03:24","modified_gmt":"2022-02-12T04:03:24","slug":"summer-travels-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oafdn.ca\/fr\/summer-travels-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Summer Travels – 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Sun<\/p>

Among the arts organizations supported by the Foundation are theatre and music festivals located outside Toronto and whose programs are summer based. So this summer, I took the opportunity to visit as many as I could, seeing parts of southern Ontario I had never been to. It offers a different view to the \u2018Canadian landscape\u2019.<\/span><\/p>

From Parry Sound to Gananoque, Grand Bend to Millbrook, the talent and creativity across the festivals was breathtaking. This was not \u2018work\u2019, in addition to meeting the Artistic Directors, Managers and actors, I saw a wide variety of performances. In every location,\u2014the arts organization is a \u2018presence\u2019 in the local community, drawing in residents, visitors and tourists. Many local communities rely on the economic contributions from the arts.<\/span><\/p>

It doesn\u2019t get much better to combine being on the water\u2019s edge in Parry Sound in July in the early evening, watching the sun set and then listening to superb\u00a0 Canadian musicians at the\u00a0Festival of the Sound<\/strong><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>

Another perspective was a magical early evening northeast of Toronto in Millbrook. The\u00a04th<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0Line Theatre<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>is an outdoor theatre, using farm buildings converted to seating\/stage.<\/span><\/p>

The production was developed from historical events in this part of Ontario and the cast (both professional\u00a0<\/span>and local community volunteers) used the stage and adjacent fields, blending landscape into the performance experience.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>

Further east, on the St. Lawrence River, we saw the most amazing one man performance based on the life of Tom Thomson at the\u00a0Thousand Islands Playhouse. We stayed over and engaged in \u2018retail therapy\u2019 on the main street of the town.<\/span><\/p>

In the tiny village of Blyth, the\u00a0<\/span>Blyth Festival\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>has developed a history of compelling theatre where we were challenged by a thought provoking drama \u2013 well acted and creatively staged.<\/span><\/p>

After experiencing a summer Saturday evening in Kincardine with the local Pipe Band parade (30-40 strong), we drove down Lake Huron to enjoy, sing and laugh at the\u00a0<\/span>Drayton Entertainment\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>Huron County Playhouse’s production of Mamma Mia.<\/span><\/p>

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Embracing all ages, one of the lead actor\u2019s children was performing on a smaller stage next door in a panto production of Aladdin \u2013 the arts embracing all ages!<\/span><\/p>


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We saw theatre in small productions in Port Dover (<\/span>Lighthouse Festival Theatre<\/strong><\/span>) and Port Colborne (<\/span>Showboat Festival Theatre<\/strong><\/span>), as well larger scale shows at the\u00a0<\/span>Shaw Festival<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0et le\u00a0<\/span>Stratford Festival<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0— \u2018Breath of Kings\u2019 two back to back performances (you can never have too much Shakespeare).<\/span><\/p>

In the musical theme, I had great fun wandering festival site at\u00a0<\/span>Ottawa Bluesfest<\/strong><\/span>. This included small blues\/jazz groups in an intimate stage setting as well as mingling with thousands to hear contemporary rock\/rap groups!<\/span><\/p>

The common denominator was a passion for excellence.\u00a0 From playwrights,\u00a0<\/span>staging, directors, musicians, actors \u2013 the quality was high.\u00a0\u00a0I came away impressed with every organization, every community.<\/span>
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All of this lies within a day\u2019s drive of Toronto \u2013 it was a refreshing break to see more of Ontario, to meet playwrights, actors, musicians and be intellectually challenged and satisfied.<\/span><\/p>

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It was VERY clear how important the arts organizations and festivals are to the life and economy of their towns\/cities. Whether it was our having dinner in the bistro across from the Blyth Festival, staying in local inns\/B&B\u2019s or being one of 40,000 attendees at one BluesFest concert, it was clear that Ontario\u2019s our arts organizations and festivals are important contributors to their local economy \u2013 employment, taxes, generation of visitor\/tourist activity and effective engage with their community.

<\/span>A visible example were the teenage volunteers at Huron County<\/span>Playhouse selling 50\/50 tickets before the performance, acting as ushers \u2013 involving the local community.<\/span><\/p>

What a treat this summer was \u2013 there are still many places and arts organizations to visit and I look forward to planning next summer !<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Among the arts organizations supported by the Foundation are theatre and music festivals located outside Toronto and whose programs are summer based. So this summer, I took the opportunity to visit as many as I could, seeing parts of southern Ontario I had never been to. It offers a different view to the \u2018Canadian landscape\u2019. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4391,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"give_campaign_id":0,"nf_dc_page":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oafdn.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oafdn.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oafdn.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oafdn.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oafdn.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/oafdn.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oafdn.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oafdn.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oafdn.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oafdn.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}