Stratford announces 2013 Playbill this week

Here we are, barely at the half-way mark of the 2012 season in Stratford, and the 2013 season has been announced by incoming Artistic Director Antoni Cimolino earlier this week.  That's the way it is, of course, as they have to plan ahead and get everyone confirmed early so they can spend the winter months doing the actual preparations, including set and costume design, and so on.

I like what Antoni is suggesting for his first season, not only on stage but off.  There will be two new initiatives focusing on innovation and exploration next season:  Forum and Laboratory.  Forum will be an interactive program of talks, discussions, music and dance as well as other events offering a diverse range of perspectives and will invite debate of the season's themes.  The audiences will be invited to participate in a lively exchange of ideas, according to Cimolino, although specific details as to how that will play out have not been disclosed yet.

Laboratory, on the other hand, is according to Cimolino, "for the artist what the Forum is for the audience."  The Laboratory will enable playwrights to work on a grander scale, emulating the scope of the classics, Cimolino says.  It will also provide opportunities to experiment with existing works.  Essentially, he says, "the Laboratory will be a workshop but also a playground...to enable us to work with artists from other countries and to form partnerships with other disciplines.  It will encourage innovative approaches to the great classical texts, so we can find new ways of telling these familiar stories."

There is a third goal Cimolino has for the Festival and that is to establish the Festival and indeed the city of Stratford as "an unrivalled spiritual, emotional and intellectual retreat.  Tyrone Guthrie, our first Artistic Director, conceived of Stratford as a place removed from a major metropolis where you could lay aside for a moment the demands of daily life and give yourself time to enjoy, to think and to feel - and then go home refreshed, restored and inspired."  This suggests to me they are aiming to perhaps, if not duplicate, to take inspiration from the summer Chatauqua series of music and lecture events down in New York State.  It is not that far-fetched an idea, really, and the more opportunities to bring people to Stratford and to keep them there, the better.  So we'll see how this plays out in the coming years as well.

Now, on to the playbill for the 2013 season.  The Festival Theatre will open the season with Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet, directed by Tim Carroll, who directed 2010's popular Peter Pan.  Donna Feore, who this season handled directing and choreography duties for the family show, You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, will be handling the same duties for the classic musical Fiddler on the Roof.  Her last effort on the Festival stage was Oklahoma! a few seasons back.  It was a popular show, but not one of my personal favourites as I recall.  Also on the Festival stage will be Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, always a tricky vehicle given the content, directed by Antoni Cimolino and featuring Brian Bedford as Shylock.  Finally, The Three Musketeers by Peter Raby, adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, will be directed by Miles Potter, who has enjoyed great success at Stratford in the past with productions of Richard III, Medea and Orpheus Descending.

On the Avon stage, Brian Bedford will direct the Noel Coward comedy Blithe Spirit, the story of ghostly visitations from the "other side"; Chris Abraham will return to direct Shakespeare's Othello at the Avon Theatre.  Abraham directs this season's very successful The Matchmaker on the Festival stage, of course.  Finally, outgoing Artistic Director Des McAnuff returns next season to direct The Who's Tommy, long rumoured to be performed at Stratford during McAnuff's tenure but likely delayed until he had time to actually stage it properly once his administrative duties were done at Stratford.  Des co-wrote The Who's Tommy with Pete Townshend and he won a Tony Award as Best Director in 1993.  After last season's Jesus Christ Superstar, this will be a much-anticipated show next season for sure.

The Tom Patterson Theatre will feature another Shakespeare play, Measure for Measure, directed by Martha Henry, who last directed at Stratford with 2009's Three Sisters by Chekhov.  Samuel Beckett's classic Waiting for Godot will also be presented on the Patterson stage, directed by Jennifer Tarver, who last directed the 2008 production of Krapp's Last Tape featuring Brian Dennehy.  Dennehy returns  next season to play Pozzo in Waiting for Godot; he will also play Talbot in Friedrich Schiller's Mary Stuart, directed by Antoni Cimolino.

Meantime, the Studio Theatre will host John Murrell's Taking Shakespeare, directed by Diana Leblanc,  and features Martha Henry as the Prof, a role written expressly for her.  Also at the Studio Theatre, Dean Gabourie will directed the world premiere of Judith Thompson's The Thrill, a Festival commission.  Gabourie this season is directing the premiere of Daniel MacIvor's The Best Brothers.

So, all told an interesting season as Cimolino's maiden voyage as Artistic Director; there will be 12 productions next season, down two from this season's 14 productions.  Now, let the planning begin!

July 21st, 2012.