This week, I’m elated that my play Post Alice will be performed on the Blyth Festival Theatre’s stage as part of the Alice Munro Festival of the Short Story in Huron County, the Huron Tract on Treaty 29 territory in southwestern Ontario. This region is also known to some readers and writers as “Alice Munro Country.”
As a young girl growing up in Huron County, Ont., in the 1990s, I spent hours reading Munro’s stories. In the years since, I have remained a devoted fan of her work, particularly for her complex depictions of southwestern Ontario life.
I’ve also learned Munro herself was a playwright at the Blyth Festival Theatre in 1976. Munro’s connection to the theatre is an aspect of her life that I explore in my doctoral dissertation The Blyth Festival Theatre and the Imagined Rural Canada. Since Munro’s 1976 production, apart from my own play, Blyth has presented two other works in connection with Munro.
