I'm posting this information to share with other Alice Munro fans (!) and hope that they'll be intrigued by this opportunity to enjoy live professional theatre just up the road from where Ms. Munro lives in Huron County, SW Ontario, on Ontario's West Coast.
Blyth Festival theatre members know that readers love Alice Munro's works and this season her story Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage comes to life on our stage, in a production created by playwright Marcia Johnson.
Courting Johanna
A Play based on Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage by Alice Munro
“…It had all begun with Sabitha saying, ‘We have to go by the Post Office. I have to send a letter to my dad’…”
In this story, two teenage girls play an idle game that spins out of control when boredom turns into mischief. Inspired by their game, the girls write a flurry of fraudulent love letters to Johanna, a hard working, but unwitting, housekeeper. Believing that the letters come from an honourable man, Johanna revels in the hope that she can leave her housekeeping days behind her. When she makes a daring choice, it changes the course of her life and of those around her. No other writer has ever captured the essence of life in Huron County quite the way that Alice Munro has. The Blyth Festival is honoured to present this play, adapted from the work of Canada’s greatest short story writer.
We may be lucky enough to welcome Ms. Munro to the opening night...although she is very shy generally. There's a great book shop in Bayfield where she hangs out and a lovely restaurant in Goderich where she often meets her agent and friends.
Everyone is very welcoming to her and most don't approach her....
Hope you go visit the Blyth Festival's web pages to see what else is happening on stage in 2008.
Taisie