Yesterday: a quick Zoom meeting with director Kate Lynch. This is intimidating for me – mostly because she’s a very well respected actor and director, but also because she looks perfectly put together on Zoom, with a well-curated Toronto background. Meanwhile, I’m in my Saskatchewan basement, hoping she won’t notice I have peanut butter on my sweater.

Kate has had a lot of great ideas for Dry Streak. My gut instinct is always: “No! No changes!” But then I think about it for a couple of hours and realize she’s totally right, and I should’ve thought of that idea in the first place.

I don’t think this is because I have some kind of huge ego – I suspect it’s just that I don’t really care for change. I’ve seen the play one way, people laughed. Why mess with it?

But Kate’s suggestions have dug into the characters’ hearts. Kate’s not looking for cheap laughs (with the possible exception of adding “rutabaga”). She’s keeping the characters true to themselves, and then adding MORE, with a better-flowing dialogue.

(If this kind of thing interests you, I’m happy to share a copy of the original script to compare to the revised script. Remind me after the show.)

Rural comedy Dry Streak is having its 20-year anniversary this summer at Blyth Festival!

I’m excited to be working with director Kate Lynch. We’re tweaking and rewriting the text before rehearsals start in June — making a few changes to suit an audience in Huron County, Ontario.

Not that I’m a people pleaser, but even I can see the benefits of taking out the line “Goddamn people from Toronto” when the stage is two hours from the city. And everytime you say the word “rutabaga” to someone from Huron County, they start to laugh. I don’t get it, but I found a place to use the word (“give the people what they want…”).

Here’s the poster. I’ll post updates from now to Opening Night (June 17).