Writing and starring in a one-woman show was not something Dale Hamilton of Eden Mills ever thought she would undertake.
But immersed in theatre for over 40 years, she is passionate about the potential it has for social activism.
In her latest play, She Won’t Come in From the Fields, Hamilton combines theatre with her zeal for agriculture, specifically, the need for regenerative growing practices and food security.
Fed up with the conventional way her son Daniel is farming the family land, the play’s main character, Sylvia, stages a one-woman protest, refusing to come in from the fields until he agrees to try farming regeneratively.
In the process, it hits home for both characters as they realize working together is the best way to regenerate their farm and help reverse climate change.
“I am passionate about environmental education and this is an interesting way to approach it. The kind of theatre I have been doing for decades is community engagement theatre, which means helping communities tell their stories," Hamilton said.
"It’s inclusive theatre, so anybody who wants a part, gets a part.”
Hamilton, founder, playwright, director and theatre producer of Everybody’s Theatre Company (ETC) in Eden Mills, said this style of theatre is more about community development and personal growth.
“It’s just something different. I began to realize that there was a recurring theme in all of my productions, about 12 or 13 of various community-engaged plays,” she said.
"I realized that the importance of the environment was really a recurring theme in all of them.”
In the 1990s, Hamilton she was elected to Guelph/Eramosa Township council and appointed to the provincial Farm Products Appeal Tribunal.
She is a member of Farmers for Climate Change, the Ecological Farmers’ Association of Ontario and holds a master's degree in environmental studies from York University, where she focused her research on regenerative farming and arts-based environmental education.
"I took a 45-year break from university and I went back to complete a master’s degree,” she said.
“I looked at the state of the world, and I decided that the most effective way to do doing something, was with an environmental focus.”
After graduating in 2022, Hamilton’s final dissertation included writing and performing in a one woman show.
"While at York, I was able to get delegate status to the United Nations Climate Change Summit COPP 25 in Madrid and then COPP 26 in Glasgow the following year in November, 2023. I performed an early iteration of this play in the streets of Glasgow,” Hamilton said.
“Of course, there were lots of protests going on with thousands of people. It was a great experience and my play was well received. But for me, it was a pause for thought about ‘preaching to the choir’.”
Many audiences were on board.
“There can be some benefit to that. It can confirm people’s beliefs in that they feel a sense of camaraderie that there’s a community of people who share the same beliefs,” she said.
“But my goal was to try to change some minds and open up conversations with those who weren’t necessarily of the same opinion, such as conventional farmers who use chemical inputs and heavy tillage."
Hamilton was born into a farming family.
“The latest crop of the family are the seventh generation here. I grew up on a farm just near the Rockwood Conservation area. And now, I have 16 acres between the two branches of the Eramosa River that Fronts Eden Mills,” Hamilton said.
"I have access to a five-acre field that was once part of the original farm, a corn field that is being retained by my cousins.”
Hamilton practices both large-scale gardening and small-scale farming.
“So, I don’t just write and perform about it, I actually do regenerative food growing,” she said.
After receiving a Canada Council for the Arts Travel grant, Hamilton has taken her show on the road.
“I have been performing the play all across Canada. I have done the eastern leg of the tour which included eastern Ontario, Vermont, Nova Scotia, PEI and Newfoundland. And now I am back over the holidays doing some local shows,” she said.
Hamilton will perform in Guelph on Jan. 4 at 10C on Carden Street. At 2 p.m. and at the Guelph Organic conference in the Grad Lounge at the University of Guelph on Jan. 24 at 5:15 p.m.
Hamilton has also been invited to perform at a Yukon Agricultural Association conference in Whitehorse. When she heads west, she will perform in Sudbury, at the Manitoba Agriculture Days, across the prairies, B.C., and Yellowknife.
“I am realizing that agricultural conferences are a really good way to go because I can hit more people,” Hamilton said.
"And as I travel, I’m committed to making the carbon footprint of my tour as small as possible, so I do try to take the train as much as possible.”
In her show, She Won’t Come in From the Fields, the story begins with a video call between mother and son.
“Sylvia is a feisty farm woman, and her son, Daniel, has basically been farming the family land conventionally, using high chemical inputs and heavy tillage,” Hamilton said.
“It’s a call between the two of them, where Sylvia chains herself to a fence post on the land. She refuses to come in from the fields, until he agrees to try experimenting on a field with some of the things that she is proposing.”
Feedback from the show has been positive.
“The message is that there is a lot to learn from conventional farmers and we should all work together. That’s the whole thrust of it. I’ve really adjusted the script to include them, rather than it be about us and them,” Hamilton said.
Although she has a world of theatre experience behind the scenes, this is the first time Hamilton has ventured into acting.
“I do actually get nervous about it. It’s a bit like climbing a mountain for me to get on stage. But one of my favourite actors, Martha Henry, once said that when she receives a script, if it makes her afraid, then she decides to do it,” she said.
Each 30-minute performance of She Won’t Come in From the Fields, is followed by a conversation with the audience about climate solutions and challenges in farming today. The audience can help to explore different approaches to food production for the benefit of farmers, consumers and the planet.
“I knew it would be a lot of work because it’s just me, myself and I. I am the producer, tour manager and the one schlepping the luggage. But all in all, it’s worth it,” she said.
“A farmer in Newfoundland said it brought a tear to his eye. The story was parallel to his own when he was trying to do more regenerative practices. At first, his son would not, but the story does end positively. His son is now on board.”
