From Hamlet to Mary Poppins, STRATFORD FESTIVAL unveils ambitious 75th season
The Stratford Festival of Canada will celebrate its 75th season with a new Artistic Director at the helm, the UK’s Jonathan Church.
For Church, the appointment carries a special resonance. He spent a decade leading the Chichester Festival, whose thrust stage was inspired by Stratford’s groundbreaking design. Created by UK director Tyrone Guthrie and designer Tanya Moiseiwitsch for the Canadian Festival's inaugural 1953 season, that stage transformed the relationship between actors and audiences and influenced theatre design around the world.
Jonathan Church said: “As Stratford celebrates its 75th season, I'm very aware that many of the ideas that shaped modern theatre can be traced directly back to this place. Tyrone Guthrie and Tanya Moiseiwitsch came to Canada to realise a vision they had been unable to achieve in post-ward Britain and, in doing so, created one of the world’s most influential theatres. Having spent many years at Chichester, which was inspired by Stratford, I've long felt a connection to that legacy. To now work on these stages is tremendously exciting.”
Church launches his Canadian tenure with a sweeping 13-production playbill that reflects both the traditions that have shaped Stratford since its inception and the artistic curiosity that continues to drive it forward.
At the heart of the milestone season are Hamlet, directed by Des McAnuff, and musicals Mary Poppins, directed by Jonathan O’Boyle and Stephen Mear, and Chicago, directed and choreographed by Donna Feore.
Church will himself direct the Canadian premieres of Hilary Mantel’s Tudor epics Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies.
Church has lured stage and screen star Eric McCormack back to Stratford - where he began his career in the 1980s - to play the lead in Noël Coward’s Present Laughter.
Hollywood star Saul Rubinek - returning to the Stratford company for the first time since 1969 - will lead an ambitious three-play exploration of Jewish identity, memory and representation, playing Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, presenting his one-person show Playing Shylock and performing in his own play All in the Telling, which will have its world premiere. Rubinek will be working with director Chris Abraham on The Merchant of Venice and All in the Telling, and with his longtime collaborator director Martin Kinch on Playing Shylock.
The season also features Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, Daniel David Moses’s Almighty Voice and His Wife, Kat Sandler’s delightful adaptation of Anne of Green Gables, and the world premiere of a new Canadian musical based on Mordecai Richler’s Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang, with a book by David S. Craig, and music and lyrics by Anika Johnson and Britta Johnson, directed by Stafford Arima.
Church continues: “One of the things that drew me to Stratford is the extraordinary range of work that can flourish here. There are very few theatre companies in the world where Shakespeare, major musicals, family theatre, new Canadian plays and large-scale historical drama can share the same season. That breadth is one of Stratford’s great strengths and it is something I wanted to embrace in my first season as Artistic Director.”
“As I begin my Stratford adventure in the Festival’s 75th season, I’m reflecting on Tyrone Guthrie’s bold journey to Stratford in 1953 and on the spirit of adventure that brought founder Tom Patterson’s dream for this remarkable theatre into being. The greatest tribute we can pay that legacy is not simply to look back, but to continue moving forward with curiosity, courage and imagination.”