Stage Door News
Stage Door News
He has been one of Niagara's most popular playwrights for decades.
So perhaps it was just a matter of time before Norm Foster, à la George Bernard Shaw, got his own festival here. Starting next June, the new FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre will be home to the Norm Foster Theatre Festival.
The inaugural season will offer three plays in the Robertson Theatre, running nine weeks each. Shows will be announced in October.
It will mark the first theatre festival in Canada dedicated to a living playwright's work. Foster will attend a 4 p.m. launch reception Monday at the Quartek Group Building on St. Paul Street, St. Catharines. He'll be joined by the festival's artistic director, Patricia Vanstone, and executive director, Emily Oriold.
“I am very excited about the Norm Foster Theatre Festival coming to St. Catharines,” Foster said in an e-mailed statement to The Review. “I am also pleased the festival is an artist-driven operation that is being run by two very strong women in Emily Oriold and Patrician Vanstone.
“We look forward to producing some very entertaining theatre here, utilizing some wonderful talent, and I hope this will be our home for many years to come.”
Foster has been a Niagara theatre mainstay, often with multiple shows running at once. He's a particular favourite of Garrison Little Theatre in Fort Erie and the Niagara Falls Music Theatre Society in Niagara Falls. He has even made an appearance at the Shaw Festival – Foster co-wrote the book for the musical A Foggy Day, produced during the 1998 season.
The Newmarket-born writer has written 60 plays, with three currently in development. There are about 150 productions of his work every year across Canada.
Foster jokes that while he's the writer, Vanstone and Oriold are calling the shots for the new festival.
“I'm just riding on their coattails, doing what they tell me to do.”
Foster is currently performing with Vanstone in his play On a First Name Basis at Port Hope's Capital Theatre.
By John Law for www.niagarafallsreview.ca.
Photo: Norm Foster.
2015-06-13
St. Catharines: Norm Foster Festival coming to St. Catharines in 2016