James Reaney

Jillian Keiley’s Alice Through the Looking-Glass moves across Canada

July 8th, 2015

Alice Through the Looking-Glass director **Jillian Keiley** with actors playing Alice across Canada: **Gwendolyn Collins** (Winnipeg’s Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre), **Ellie Heath** (Edmonton’s Citadel Theatre), **Trish Lindström** (the Stratford Festival) and, seated, **Natasha Greenblatt** (NAC and Charlottetown’s Confederation Centre of the Arts). Photographed in the Palm Room of Spadina House, Toronto, June 2015.

June 25, 2015 — Now playing in Charlottetown at the Confederation Centre of the Arts, James Reaney’s adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking-Glass will open in Winnipeg later this fall and in Edmonton next February. Director Jillian Keiley plans to have local performers for each production to bring last summer’s Stratford Festival hit to new cities.

In other news, Jillian Keiley will continue in her role as Artistic Director of Canada’s National Arts Centre English Theatre; her contract has been extended for another four years. Congratulations, Jillian!

In Charlottetown, you can purchase tickets by calling 1-800-565-0278 (902-566-1267) or order online here.

♦ We also hear good things about Evangeline, a new musical play at the Charlottetown Festival, and you won’t want to miss Anne of Green Gables.

♦ What reviewers are saying: “Alice Through the Looking-Glass” will leave you in awe.“ — Lennie MacPherson in The Guardian

“… Surprises in every scene and you just have to see it for yourself.” — Cindy Lapeña in Opening Night Reviews PEI

June 26, 2015 — The Confederation Centre of the Arts, Charlottetown, PEI

Alice Through the Looking-Glass in Charlottetown: June 24 to August 29

June 17th, 2015

This summer the Charlottetown Festival will present James Reaney’s adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking-Glass at the Homburg Theatre at the Confederation Centre for the Arts in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.

Alice Through the Looking-Glass at the Charlottetown Festival, June 24-August 29

This production of Alice is the Atlantic Canada premiere of last summer’s Stratford Festival hit. How fitting that Alice would journey to PEI — the home of Anne of Green Gables! Long ago Mark Twain called Anne Shirley “the dearest and most lovable child in fiction since the immortal Alice.”

To purchase tickets, call 1-800-565-0278 (902-566-1267) or order online here.

Trish Lindstrom as Alice in Alice Through the Looking-Glass, May 2014 at the Stratford Festival. Photo by Cylia Von Tiedemann.

Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking-Glass: adapted for the stage by James Reaney is available from the Porcupine’s Quill.

Southern Ontario Gothic and James Reaney

June 12th, 2015

June 4, 2015 — Southern Ontario Gothic was the topic of discussion on TV Ontario’s “Agenda” tonight. Panelists Jane Urqhart, Monika Lee, Michael Hurley, and Shani Mootoo recommend these titles for your Gothic fiction fix:

♦ Jane Urqhart: Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
♦ Monika Lee: The Donnellys by James Reaney
♦ Michael Hurley: Perpetual Motion by Graeme Gibson
♦ Shani Mootoo: All the Broken Things by Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer

“James Reaney is one of our best Gothic writers from Southern Ontario, and he is one of the most influential. He’s had a huge impact on a lot of writers who are more famous than he is, like Alice Munro and Margret Atwood,” says Monika Lee, Professor of English Literature at Brescia College.

June 4, 2015 — Monika Lee champions James Reaney’s The Donnellys as a true Southern Ontario Gothic work. TV Ontario: http://tvo.org/programs/the-agenda-with-steve-paikin/southern-ontario-gothic

More about Southern Ontario Gothic:

“James Reaney’s plays — Colours in the Dark (1969), Baldoon (1976), and The Donnellys (1974-7) — as well as his short stories “The Bully” and “The Box Social” (reprinted in The Box Social and Other Stories in 1996), also assume Gothic elements of the macabre rooted in nightmarish families and uncanny action. […]

What makes this locale so prone to Gothic tales is the failure of communication between family members or social groups. In the absence of communication, strange projections and psychological grotesqueries spring up and rapidly grow to unmanageable proportions. Malevolent fantasies are the source and sustenance of the Gothic tradition.”
— Michael Hurley and Allan Hepburn in The Concise Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature, pages 593-594. William Toye, Ed., Oxford University Press, 2011.

Watch the video here: >>> https://www.tvo.org/video/southern-ontario-gothic

See also “James Reaney on writing about the Donnellys”: https://jamesreaney.com/2019/01/04/james-reaney-on-writing-about-the-donnellys/

James Reaney’s “Brush Strokes Decorating a Fan”

January 4th, 2015

In celebration of Brick Books 40th anniversary, here is one of the 26 stanzas from James Reaney’s poem “Brush Strokes Decorating a Fan”.

(u)
A Useful List:
Hermes
Hera
Apollo
Zeus
Venus
Vulcan
Mars
Athena
Vesta
Hades
Poseidon
Ceres.
Useful for what?

Well, I don’t quite know yet,
But I swear that as an infant,
Born near the Little Lakes,
I met them.
Every morning in our house,
Vesta used to light the stove

James Reaney, 2005

James Reaney at home, age 1 1/2 years, January 1928.

“Brush Strokes Decorating a Fan” is from James Reaney’s book of poems Souwesto Home (2005), available from Brick Books. For more about the poem, see Celebration of Poetry: Week 1 James Reaney.

Ten of the stanzas from “Brush Strokes Decorating a Fan” (including “(u) A Useful List”) were set to music by Oliver Whitehead and Stephen Holowitz and performed by the Antler River Project in 2008.

Souwesto Home by James Reaney, 2005, Brick Books.

Alice Through the Looking Glass at the National Arts Centre, December 9 to January 3

December 2nd, 2014

Director Jillian Keiley’s production of Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking Glass, adapted for the stage by James Reaney, opens December 9 to January 3 at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.

Jillian Keiley is the National Arts Centre’s English Theatre Artistic Director, and she led a successful production of Alice Through the Looking Glass at the Stratford Festival earlier this summer.

Lois Anderson as the White Queen and Natasha Greenblatt as Alice in Alice Through the Looking Glass, National Arts Centre, Ottawa, December 9, 2014 to January 3, 2015. Photo by David Krovblit.

Order tickets online here or call the National Arts Centre box office at 613-947-7000 x620 (1-866-850-ARTS x620). The National Arts Centre is located at 53 Elgin Street in Ottawa.

◊ Meet some of the cast of Alice Through the Looking Glass: Introducing the National Arts Centre’s 2014-15 Ensemble.

◊ Come and hear Jillian Keiley at “Points of View: Alice Through the Looking Glass” on December 13 (12:45 pm) in Ottawa.

◊ Enjoy more Lewis Carroll at the National Arts Centre with the National Ballet’s Alice in Wonderland, April 9-12, 2015.

◊ For a closer look at the text, James Reaney’s adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking-Glass is available from the Porcupine’s Quill.

Page 15: Alice rehearsal drawing by James Reaney, 1993.

Richard Stingle 1925-2014

November 26th, 2014

Richard Macmillan Stingle, long-time friend and colleague of James Reaney, passed away on November 22 at University Hospital in London, Ontario.

Richard was a friend and mentor to many of us, and we will remember him for his fierce wit and his generous spirit.

For more memories of Richard, see Don Hair’s tribute and JBNBlog.

May 25, 2010: Richard Stingle on James Reaney’s A Suit of Nettles

*Richard Stingle’s talk “A learned poet writes a Suit of Nettles”, London Public Library, May 25, 2010*

Richard Stingle with Jean McKay at “The Art of James Reaney,” Landon Library, June 9, 2006, London. Ontario.

Student days: Richard Stingle, Bob Patchell, and James Reaney in Toronto, 1949.

Tim Inkster on design in James Reaney’s work

October 29th, 2014

Tim Inkster in Stratford, Ontario, October 19, 2014. Photo by Laura Cudworth, courtesy Stratford Beacon Herald.

Thank you all for coming to the Fifth Annual James Reaney Memorial Lecture in Stratford to hear publisher Tim Inkster’s talk on “The Iconography of James Reaney: A Collector’s Manual.”

Inkster praised the excellence of the typography and graphic design in many of James Reaney’s published works, particularly Paul Arthur’s design for The Red Heart (1949) and Allan Fleming’s design for A Suit of Nettles (1958). Tim is also impressed by James Reaney’s work hand typesetting the early issues of his magazine Alphabet (1960-1971).

Alphabet Number One, September 1960. Cover design by Allan Fleming (1929-1977)

A full version of Tim Inkster’s lecture will appear in an upcoming issue of The Devil’s Artisan, a journal of the printing arts.

Cover for James Reaney’s Twelve Letters To A Small Town, first published in 1962 by Ryerson Press.

Pages 6 and 7 from Twelve Letters To A Small Town (1962). Drawings by James Reaney.

Our thanks also to Charles Mountford of Poetry Stratford and Robyn Godfrey of the Stratford Public Library for their help in organizing this event. Future speakers for the James Reaney Annual Memorial Lecture include Thomas Gerry and John Beckwith.

For more about the lecture, see JBNBlog and Laura Cudworth‘s article in the October 20, 2014 e-edition of the Stratford Beacon Herald (page A1).

James Reaney printing at the Alphabet Press print shop at 430 Talbot Street in London, Ontario (mid-1960s). Credit: London Free Press/Sun Media Corporation.

James Reaney Memorial Lecture October 19 in Stratford

October 1st, 2014

Join us on Sunday, October 19 at 2:30 pm at The Atrium (behind Café Ten) in Stratford, Ontario, for a talk about graphic design in James Reaney’s work by publisher Tim Inkster.

Tim Inkster is particularly intrigued by the excellence of the design in James Reaney’s first book, The Red Heart (1949), one of the nine titles in McClelland & Stewart’s Indian File series (1948-1958) and designed by Paul Arthur (1924-2001).

Cover and title page from James Reaney’s The Red Heart (1949). The Red Heart was the third title in McClelland & Stewart’s Indian File poetry series.

Café Ten is located at

10 Downie Street,

Stratford, Ontario

N5A 7K4

Tel: (519) 508-2233

The annual lecture is a project developed by The Stratford Public Library and Poetry Stratford, and features a talk by a person who is knowledgeable about the life and work of Stratford poet and playwright James Reaney and of writing in the Southwestern Ontario region, which is such a strong element in Reaney’s writing.

Alice Through the Looking-Glass at Stratford May 31 to October 12

August 4th, 2014

James Reaney’s thoughts on putting on your own version of Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking-Glass:

Is There Life After Alice? That is, after you’ve seen the show, what do you do when you get home? … Once when I was eight, I had a parallel experience to the one you may have just had, of watching a professional production, authentically acted with exuberance and supported by sophisticated design and fabulous illusions and compelling direction. My theatrical experience wasn’t a play though. In those days, Stratford was not as lucky as it is nowadays, but what it was was my very first circus — Ringling Brothers — an absolutely enthralling show, unforgettably enchanting. The only reaction you could have was to go home and put on your own circus, in this case with my cousins and whatever the farm could muster. Cows as elephants? Of course, you couldn’t rival the production you had just seen, but what you could do was with your own simplicity rival its feeling, and the attempt turned me into an artist. I don’t see this as an improbable effect of the show you have just seen and I hope that the various first steps I have described in paralleling its effects and impacts may lead some of you to a lasting love of theatre and art…

—From Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking-Glass: Adapted for the stage by James Reaney, pages 133 and 141.

James Reaney leading an Alice workshop at Stratford Central Secondary School (Stratford Collegiate) in 1994. Photo by Scott Wishart, Stratford Beacon Herald.

Jillian Keiley’s new production of Alice Through the Looking-Glass continues this summer at the Stratford Festival, May 31 to October 12. To buy tickets, contact the box office at 1.800.567.1600 or visit stratfordfestival.ca

Trish Lindström as Alice in “Alice Through the Looking-Glass”, May 31 to October 12 at the Avon Theatre in Stratford, Ontario.

“Alice’s Dinner Party” scene from Alice Through the Looking-Glass, Avon Thetare, Stratford, Ontario 2014. Photo courtesy The Stratford Festival.

Win a copy of Alice Through the Looking-Glass!

July 15th, 2014

To celebrate the new Stratford Festival production of James Reaney’s adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking-Glass, the Porcupine’s Quill is offering a chance to win a free copy of the book!

Trish Lindström as Alice in “Alice Through the Looking-Glass”, May 31 to October 12 at the Avon Theatre in Stratford, Ontario. (Ruby Joy is the Alice Double.)

June 10-14: AlvegoRoot presents James Reaney’s Take the Big Picture

June 10-14 at Fanshawe Pioneer Village, Alvegoroot Theatre presents Take the Big Picture, a two-act play based on James Reaney’s 1986 children’s novel. Director Adam Corrigan Holowitz describes his adaptation as a story about a family in conflict with the modern world: The story:The Delahay family is more than a little off balance and seventeen-year-old…

James Reaney’s home in London now a Forest City Fact

In celebration of London’s bicentennial, the City of London launched the first Forest City Facts earlier this week at Gibbons Park on the Thames River. Each lawn sign displays a short historical fact about London people, places, and events. In partnership with the London and Middlesex Historical Society and other local history groups, Forest City…

James Reaney’s A Suit of Nettles: April

To celebrate National Poetry Month, here is the “April” eclogue from James Reaney’s long poem A Suit of Nettles. April ARGUMENT: With Duncan as judge the geese hold a bardic contest in honour of Spring. [DUNCAN RAYMOND VALANCY] Here is a kernel of the hardest winter wheat Found in the yard delicious for to eat.…