- MEDIA RELEASE
March 24, 2018… There were many reasons to celebrate at the Stratford Festival in 2017. Its 65th
season, commemorated during Canada 150, was an artistic and financial
success – ending solidly in the black – and the year also marked a new
beginning for the Festival as it embarked on a $100-million project to
build a landmark theatre honouring its founder,
Tom Patterson.
“2017 was a year of remarkable achievement,” said Artistic Director
Antoni Cimolino. “We presented an extraordinary range of plays –
from the ancient Greeks through to new works – which earned
international recognition. We enlarged the identity of our company,
bringing in new talents and forging new connections. We even
had a visit from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. But as exciting as all
of this was, our crowning achievement was the unveiling of
Siamak Hariri’s breathtaking design for a new Tom Patterson Theatre.”
At
its annual general meeting on Saturday, the Festival reported a surplus
of $232,765 on revenue of $60.7 million. Attendance was 456,905 and
donations
to the Festival increased to a record $14.3 million.
“We ended this celebratory year with a fifth consecutive surplus,” said Executive Director Anita
Gaffney. “And it
was a record year for fundraising, an accomplishment made all the more
remarkable by the fact that we have also raised more than $70 million
towards our long-anticipated renewal of the Tom
Patterson Theatre. Now as we embark on our 66th season, we prepare to welcome our 28 millionth patron – another
reason to celebrate.”
To mark Canada 150, the Festival presented three plays by female Canadian playwrights – The
Komagata Maru Incident, by
Sharon Pollock, the heartbreaking tale of a group of emigrants denied entry to Canada in 1914 because of systemic racism; The
Virgin Trial, the second chilling instalment of the Tudor trilogy commissioned from
Kate Hennig; and The Breathing Hole, a gripping exploration of the history of Canada’s Far North, commissioned by the Festival from playwright
Colleen Murphy.
“Colleen was a finalist for the coveted international Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for
The Breathing Hole, which recognizes outstanding new works by
female playwrights,” said Mr. Cimolino, “and this was just one of the
many projects undertaken as part of our Laboratory to build new skills,
new artistic relationships and develop the breadth
of our company. Such exploration and growth is extremely energizing.”
The Breathing Hole opened new avenues for the Festival’s education department, with teaching artists
travelling to remote First Nations communities to work with students telling their own stories.
The Stratford Festival HD catalogue rose to 10 titles this season, with the filming of
Romeo and Juliet and Timon of Athens. The HD initiative has brought the Festival’s Shakespeare work to roughly 450,000 people since its launch in 2015.
Behind
the scenes, the Festival welcomed new participants to the Birmingham
Conservatory, the Langham Workshop for Classical Direction and the
Playwrights
Retreat, and expanded theatrical practices through the Laboratory,
where another 21 new plays are currently in development.
The
Forum completed its fifth year with record revenue and a number of
sold-out and marquee events, including The Appeal, presided over by
Chief Justice
Beverley McLachlin one last time before her retirement from the bench.
The season offered a wide variety of opportunities for families to enjoy Stratford, including Guys
and Dolls, HMS Pinafore,
a wonderful newly commissioned adaptation of Treasure Island and
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Twelfth
Night, resulting in the sale of more than 70,000 tickets to children under the age of 18.
Some rarely produced classics added to the range of the season, creating experiences unique to Stratford: Shakespeare’s Timon
of Athens, Euripides’ Bakkhai,
Molière’s Tartuffe, Sheridan’s The
School for Scandal, Giraudoux’s The Madwoman of Chaillot,
and The Changeling, by two of Shakespeare’s contemporaries, Thomas
Middleton and William Rowley.
Guys and Dolls was
extended and became one of the top three musicals of the past decade. Three other shows were also extended to meet demand, The
Madwoman of Chaillot, The Breathing Hole and The
Virgin Trial.
In
January, the Festival launched the $100-million Spirit of the Tent
Campaign to build a new Tom Patterson Theatre Centre, with 70% of the
target already
reached. Ground will be broken on the project in the coming weeks. The
new theatre, designed by award-winning architect Siamak Hariri of
Toronto’s Hariri Pontarini, is scheduled to open for the 2020 season.
“In
its new incarnation, the Tom Patterson Theatre will be a place both of
entertainment and of education,” said Mr. Cimolino. “It will be a
stunning venue
for stunning theatre, supporting our artists in a critically important
part of our repertoire. And it will be a home for the initiatives we
have introduced strategically over the last few years – our Forum and
our Laboratory – as well as the activities of
our education department. It will stand as an emblem of everything this
Festival is about. This Festival excites, it moves, it engrosses, it
engages. And from that, there emerges – for artists and for audiences –
the possibility of new ideas, new feelings,
a new life.”
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Stratford Festival
55 Queen Street | PO Box 520 | Stratford ON | N5A 6V2
55 Queen Street | PO Box 520 | Stratford ON | N5A 6V2
Box Office: Toll Free 1.800.567.1600 | Local 519.273.1600
2018 Season
| April to October
The Tempest
| The Comedy of Errors
| Coriolanus | Julius Caesar
| The Music Man
The Rocky Horror Show
| Long Day’s Journey Into Night | An Ideal Husband
To Kill a Mockingbird
| Napoli Milionaria!
| Brontë
| Paradise Lost
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