The Blyth Festival is extending its usual season for The Wind Coming Over The Sea, an original folk musical from author, screenwriter, and playwright Emma Donoghue. The production is directed by Gil Garratt, and features Shelayna Christante and Landon Doak.
The musical had a sold-out world premiere presentation in Blyth that sparked the extended run. Both critics and audiences heaped praise on the show.
Speaking about the extension, Lisa Thompson, MPP for Huron-Bruce comments in a statement, “From the stage to the main street, the Blyth Festival enriches our communities and boosts our economy. Through the Experience Ontario 2025 program, we’re helping bring even more people to Huron–Bruce to shop, dine, stay — and be inspired, ensuring that rural Ontario remains vibrant, connected, and full of life.”
Emma Donoghue
Based in Canada, prolific novelist, screenwriter and playwright Emma Donoghue was born in Dublin in 1969. She’s the author of the acclaimed novel Room (2010), which sold more than 2 million copies, and won the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (Canada and the Caribbean). It was also shortlisted for the Man Booker and Orange Prizes.
Emma also scripted the Canadian-Irish film adaptation, which was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. Her 2016 book The Wonder was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and Donoghue co-wrote the 2022 screen adaptation for Netflix.
The Wind Coming Over The Sea is Donoghue’s seventh full length play.
The Wind Coming Over The Sea
The Wind Coming Over The Sea was developed by the Blyth Festival as part of its longstanding commitment to the creation of original Canadian theatre.
The musical is based on a true story. Landon Doak stars as Henry Johnson and Shelayna Christante as Jane Johnson, a couple who emigrated from Antrim in Northern Ireland to Southwestern Ontario during the Great Famine (1845 to 1852). The folk musical incorporates traditional Irish and British ballads to tell the couple’s true story.
It’s a story of love and perseverance that incorporates text taken verbatim from archival letters that were exchanged by the couple along with music. It touches on both the optimistic promise and the sometimes much darker reality of emigration, an integral aspect of Canadian history.
Donoghue first wrote about the Johnsons in 1998 — the year she came to Canada — in a story titled Counting the Days. Henry Johnson left Ireland for Canada by sea first, and for a year, he and wife Jane corresponded by letter. Those letters were preserved, and later published by family members. They are held in the Archives and Special Collections of Western University.
Emma was touched by their emotions.
“The letters were so moving to me,” she says. “I knew that Henry and Jane would have held onto them and carried them along on their journeys. They acted like a vector between these human beings, a kind of rope of love thrown from one to the next carrying Jane across the sea to Henry.”
Along with Garrett as director, the creative team includes: Set and Lighting designer Ken MacKenzie, Costume Designer Meghan Choma, Sound Designer Adam Campbell, Music Director Anne Lederman, and Music Supervisor George Meanwell. The cast is rounded out by Geoffrey Armour, Masae Day, and Blyth Festival veteran Michelle Fisk.
The Blyth Festival
The Blyth Festival has produced works by more than 300 Canadian playwrights over its 51-year history. The organization currently also has 26 new Canadian plays in development under the creative guidance of Artistic Director Gil Garratt, who has led the company since 2014.
Member of Parliament for Huron—Bruce Ben Lobb commented, “Strong communities are built on shared experiences that bring neighbours together and pass down our heritage. The Blyth Festival’s success helps bridge generations and deepen the roots of community across Huron–Bruce.”
- Find tickets for Wind Coming Over The Sea at The Margaret Stephens Stage at Memorial Hall in Blyth [HERE].
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