CAKEWALK Comes to The Blyth Festival

Back by popular demand- Cakewalk, one of our sweetest and most delicious comedies from when the Blyth Festival began, is coming back to the stage in celebration of the Festival 45th Anniversary Season. The revival runs June 26 to Aug. 10.

Cakewalk, written by playwright Colleen Curran, centres around a Canada Day celebration, when a small town - perhaps along the shores of Lake Huron - decides to hold a cake baking competition and everyone from the community is lining up for the chance to win a dream vacation and county-wide bragging rights. It's enough to bring a local nun out of her habit, send a mother-of-the-bride running with five layers (topper and all), and to unleash the winner-take-all cut-throat tactics of the town's normally dependable Cub Scout troop leader. The oven mitts are off.

"This play premiered at the Blyth Festival in 1984 and has gone on to international acclaim. It's a slap down drag'em out classic Canadian farce full of outrageous rivalries, implausible coincidences, and preposterous slapstick love affairs. In our anniversary year, it's time for this clever and funny, Blyth benchmark to come back home," said Gil Garratt, who is the Artistic Director of the Blyth Festival. "Director Kelli Fox takes the audience on a journey back to 1984, to a nostalgic time when life seemed so much simpler, but people's sticky ambitions were just the outlandish."

The play features a strong cast of Blyth favourites, with the introduction of a few new actors. Rebecca Auerbach (The Pigeon King, Our Beautiful Sons: Remembering Matthew Dinning), Catherine Fitch (Pearl Gidley, the Nutalls, If Truth Be Told), Caroline Gillis (Anne), Nathan Howe (Wing Night at the Boot, Mr.New Year's Eve) and Robert King (Innocence Lost: A Play About Steven Truscott, I'll Be Back Before Midnight) will all return to the Blyth Festival stage for this production, along with newcomers Lucy Hill and Rachel Jones.

The creative team for Cakewalk is: Laura Gardner, set and costume designer; Louise Guinand, lighting designer; and Verne Good, sound designer. Stage management by Christine Oakey and Daniel Oulton.

As part of its 45th Season, the Festival is hosting a cake-baking contest complete with a cake parade on opening night of Cakewalk on Friday, June 28. It's all in the name of fun, with prizes awarded in professional, amateur, people's choice and kids' choice categories. There might even be prizes awarded for the best Cakewalk-themed costumes.

It's looking for the best homemade cake prepared by either an individual or a team, with contestants invited to submit one or more entries. All will be judged on taste and appearance. Also, it is going to keep the identities of the judges under wraps so that you can't butter them up ahead of time.

Complete contest details and entry forms are posted online atwww.blythfestival.com under the Deeper Roots events.

Blyth Festival acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, Season Sponsor Sparlings Propane, and Season Media Sponsor CTV, Season Hospitality Sponsor, Cowbell Brewing Company, and New Play Development Sponsor Bruce Power.

Cakewalk is generously co-sponsored by Foxton Fuels (Production Sponsor) and MyFM (Media Sponsor).

Deeper Roots is sponsored by NWMO and the Township of North Huron, in partnership with Huron County Economic Development Department. Media Sponsor is The Rural Voice.