Artistic Director Tim Carroll and the Shaw Festival proudly announce the 60th anniversary season. “We have a lot to celebrate as we look forward to our diamond anniversary season. In what might be our most ambitious programme ever, we intend to show off the range of experiences available at The Shaw,” revealed Artistic Director Tim Carroll. “In our theatres we have a mixture of classics, Festival favourites and new voices; in our gardens there will be so much
going on you won’t believe it. I hope everyone will come and join the party!”
FESTIVAL THEATRE
DAMN YANKEES
Words and Music by RICHARD ADLER and JERRY ROSS
Book by GEORGE ABBOTT and DOUGLASS WALLOP
Based on the novel by Douglass Wallop
“The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant”
Directed by Brian Hill
Previews April 23 ♦ Available for review beginning May 19 ♦ Closes October 9
Joe Boyd, an out of shape middle-aged man, makes a deal with the smooth-talking Mr.
Applegate to save his beloved Washington Senators. The price: his soul. Now known as Joe
Hardy, a young baseball phenom, he helps his favourite team beat the powerhouse New York
Yankees. But when payment is due, can he outwit the Devil and save his soul? A twist on the
Faustian legend wrapped up in a devilishly clever, romantic musical comedy.
Age Recommendation: 12+
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST
By Oscar Wilde
Directed by Tim Carroll
Previews May 18 ♦ Available for review beginning June 16 ♦ Closes October 9
Subtitled A Trivial Comedy for Serious People, Oscar Wilde’s last and greatest masterpiece
aims all his incredible wit and knack of observation into skewering Victorian attitudes and social
structure. A play in three acts, this satire mingling truth, comedy with sarcastic and blistering
banter was last seen at the Festival in 2004.
Age Recommendation: 12+
THE DOCTOR’S DILEMMA
By Bernard Shaw
Directed by Diana Donnelly
Previews July 16 ♦ Available for review beginning August 18 ♦ Closes October 8
Last seen at the Festival in 2010, Bernard Shaw’s exploration of medical ethics continues to be
relevant and timely. Pondering the moral questions concerning life and death: If one patient can
only live at the cost of another’s life, who lives and who dies? What is the value of a human life?
Queries which still have urgency are brought to thrilling life in this tragicomic tour de force.
Age Recommendation: 12+
ROYAL GEORGE THEATRE
CYRANO DE BERGERAC
By Edmond Rostand
Translated and adapted for the stage by Kate Hennig
Directed by Chris Abraham
Previews March 20 ♦ Available for review beginning March 26 ♦ Closes May 8
Swashbuckling 17th century swordsman Cyrano de Bergerac returns to The Shaw stage after
its audience-pleasing run in 2019. Exceptionally accomplished and confident, he can do
anything – well, except tell Roxane, the woman he loves, how he feels. Knowing words are the
way to Roxane’s heart, but impeded by self-consciousness about his unusually large nose,
Cyrano ghost-writes love letters to her for an inarticulate, love-struck cadet. Will there ever
come a time when he will reveal himself to her? An eloquent and poignant tale for anyone who
has ever loved from afar.
Age Recommendation: 12+
GASLIGHT
By Johnna Wright and Patty Jamieson
Based on the play Angel Street
by Patrick Hamilton
Directed by Kelli Fox
Previews May 4 ♦ Available for review beginning May 19 ♦ Closes October 9
Bella Manningham thinks she’s losing her mind. In the evenings, she hears strange sounds and
the gas lights dim for no apparent reason. Is she losing her grip on reason, or is it being
loosened for her? Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 gripping thriller, that coined the word now used to
describe an insidious form of mental abuse, has been reimagined in a new adaptation by
Johnna Wright and The Shaw’s own Patty Jamieson.
Age Recommendation: 14+
CHITRA
By Rabindranath Tagore
Directed by Kimberley Rampersad
Lunchtime One-Act
Previews June 11 ♦ Available for review beginning June 19 ♦ Closes October 8
A warrior princess and a warrior hero in love. It sounds simple enough, but things are more
complicated in Rabindranath Tagore’s one-act play based on a tale from the Sanskrit epic
Mahabharata. Chitra, a warrior princess raised as a boy, begs the gods for perfect beauty so
she can win the affections of Arjuna. An enchanting poem of false appearance and true love,
Chitra returns in 2022 as the season’s lunchtime production.
Age Recommendation: 11+
JUST TO GET MARRIED
By Cicely Hamilton
Directed by Severn Thompson
Previews July 26 ♦ Available for review beginning August 18 ♦ Closes October 16
Georgiana is 29 in 1910, so the burning question faced by a poor, but clever woman is: when
will she get married? She knows the only way a woman can gain any financial stability and
independence is to get hitched, but when a suitable man proposes, will her conscience allow
her to go through with it? Written by actress, journalist, playwright and suffragette Cicely
Hamilton, this grown-up comedy is a classic ripe for rediscovery.
Age Recommendation: 12+
JACKIE MAXWELL STUDIO THEATRE
The Jackie Maxwell Studio Theatre is sponsored by Paradigm Capital Inc.
THIS IS HOW WE GOT HERE
Written and directed by Keith Barker
Produced by Native Earth Performing Arts
Presented by the Shaw Festival
Previews February 9 ♦ Available for review beginning February 11 ♦ Closes February 19
Meet Lucille, Paul, Liset and Jim. Best friends, sisters, spouses – stumbling in the dark one year
after a tragic loss. They struggle to find each other again, when a mysterious fox shows up with
a curious gift. Simultaneously heartbreaking and heartwarming, This Is How We Got Here is a
complex and hopeful story of letting go.
Age Recommendation: 14+
TOO TRUE TO BE GOOD
By Bernard Shaw
Directed by Sanjay Talwar
Previews May 12 ♦ Available for review beginning May 26 ♦ Closes October 8
Bernard Shaw takes aim at some of his favourite targets – doctors, preachers, the military and
the aristocracy in this fantastical comedy featuring a talking microbe. Last seen at the Festival in
2006, Shaw’s ‘Political Extravaganza’, foreshadows the insanity that was about to engulf the
world after the end of WWI. With a cavalier disregard for the unities of time and place, the play
embarks on a journey into the heart of outdated public and private prejudices and errors.
Age Recommendation: 12+
EVERYBODY
By Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
Directed by László Bérczes
Previews June 8 ♦ Available for review beginning June 17 ♦ Closes October 8
A provocative modern riff on the 15th century medieval morality play Everyman by the author of
An Octoroon. Everybody (played by one of five actors selected by lottery at the start of each
performance) journeys towards life’s greatest mystery and confronts the enviable truth – Death
comes to Everybody. A Canadian premiere.
Age Recommendation: 12+
August Wilson’s
GEM OF THE OCEAN
Directed by Philip Akin
Previews August 5 ♦ Available for review beginning August 19 ♦ Closes October 9
Can redemption be gained for crimes of the past and a sense of purpose renewed? Aunt Ester,
the 285-year-old “washer of souls” and fiery matriarch at the centre of Wilson’s poetic, mystical
masterpiece, has an answer. When a young man drowning in guilt comes to her door, she
sends him on an epic quest to find the mythical City of Bones. His spiritual journey through
history takes place against a backdrop of very real events in 1904 Pittsburgh. This is the first of
August Wilson’s THE AMERICAN CENTURY CYCLE, his legendary ten-play cycle on the
African-American experience in the 20th century.
Age Recommendation: 14+
OUTDOORS @ THE SHAW
A SHORT HISTORY OF NIAGARA
Created by Alexandra Montagnese and Mike Petersen
With original sound design by Ryan Cowl
Commissioned and presented by the Shaw Festival in partnership with Parks Canada
Returning in 2022, A Short History of Niagara is thirty charming minutes of pure storytelling.
From the Maid of the Mist to Laura Secord to the founding of the Shaw Festival, wordless
puppets, accompanied by sound effects and music, bring the rich history of the Niagara Region
to life.
Age Recommendation: 4+
FAIRGROUND & SHAWGROUND
Fairground and Shawground return in 2022. These hour-long, fair-inspired interactive
experiences guide participants through the wonderfully lush Festival Theatre grounds with
charming charisma and end with an exhilarating finale. One features the tempting sensory
delights of music, poetry and dance, while the other ignites the internal Shavian with lively
deliberations, spoken word and spirited music from Shaw’s lifetime. So unique an experience,
no two encounters are the same, but all created by a special group — The Shaw’s Ensemble.
HOLIDAY SEASON
A CHRISTMAS CAROL
By Charles Dickens
Adapted and originally directed by Tim Carroll
Directed by Molly Atkinson
Royal George Theatre
Previews November 9 ♦ Available for review beginning November 12 ♦ Closes December 23
Ebenezer Scrooge is back! The Shaw’s charming production of the beloved classic A Christmas
Carol returns to the Royal George Theatre once again to warm the cockles of the most frigid of
hearts and rekindle childhood holiday memories in all.
Age Recommendation: Age 6+
Irving Berlin’s
WHITE CHRISTMAS
Based on the Paramount Pictures film
Written for the screen by Norman Krasna,
Norman Panama and Melvin Frank
MUSIC AND LYRICS BY IRVING BERLIN
BOOK BY DAVID IVES and PAUL BLAKE
Original stage production directed by WALTER BOBBIE
Orchestrations by Larry Blank
Vocal and Dance Arrangements by Bruce Pomahac
Directed by Kate Hennig
Festival Theatre
Previews November 18 ♦ Available for review beginning November 26 ♦ Closes December 23
Two former soldiers, now a successful song-and-dance duo, follow a sister double-act to
Vermont. Together, they put on a show to save a nearly-bankrupt Vermont inn now owned by
their former commanding general. This memorable musical featuring singing, dancing and a
beloved title song by Irving Berlin is the Christmas everyone dreams of.
Age Recommendation: 8+