10 productions in four theatres
Tickets on sale to Members March 6; Box office opens to the public March 18
November 23, 2021… In 2022, the Stratford Festival is coming back big to mark a monumental moment in its history with a full repertory season running from early April to the end of October, 10 major productions and almost two hundred Meighen Forum events.
It will be a milestone season in many respects. “Next year we celebrate our 70th season, the 20th anniversary of the Studio Theatre, the 10th Meighen Forum season and the grand opening of our glorious new Tom Patterson Theatre. But most of all we celebrate a new beginning,” says Artistic Director Antoni Cimolino, pointing to the theme of the season.
FESTIVAL THEATRE PROGRAMMING
HAMLET
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Peter Pasyk
Production support is generously provided by Phyllis & Robert Couzin, by John & Therese Gardner and by The Jentes Family
The Festival stage will be home to Shakespeare’s most famous play: Hamlet. At its helm is Peter Pasyk, who returns after directing A Midsummer Night’s Dream under the Tom Patterson Theatre Canopy this summer.
Prince Hamlet, son of Denmark’s late king, is horrified – and placed in a moral quandary – by the apparition of his father’s ghost. This spectre claims to have been murdered by the brother who now wears his crown – and who, having married the widowed queen, is now not only Hamlet’s uncle but also his stepfather. The ghost demands vengeance – but can it be trusted? And can the taking of a life ever be justified? Can this troubled family tolerate any further loss?
CHICAGO
Book by Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse
Lyrics by Fred Ebb
Music by John Kander
Based on the play by Maurine Dallas Watkins
Script adaptation by David Thompson
Directed and Choreographed by Donna Feore
Production support is generously provided by Robert & Mary Ann Gorlin, by Sylvia Soyka, and by Riki Turofsky & Charles Petersen
The Festival has secured the rights to the first major new production of Kander and Ebb’s Chicago outside of New York and London in more than 30 years. The musical, which holds the record for longest running musical revival on Broadway, will be entirely reimagined by director-choreographer Donna Feore.
Aspiring chorus girl Roxie Hart and vaudeville star Velma Kelly, two murderesses as sexy as they are cynical, compete for the skills of shady lawyer Billy Flynn and the media celebrity he has promised them both. Once fame has abandoned them, Roxy and Velma begin a new path forward. But if given the chance to go back in time, would they do anything differently?
With its killer score and knock-’em-dead dance numbers, this deliciously lurid tale of murder, greed, adultery – and all that jazz – packs some serious heat.
THE MISER
By Molière
In a new version by Ranjit Bolt
Directed by Antoni Cimolino
Production support is generously provided by Sylvia D. Chrominska, by The William and Nona Heaslip Foundation, by Dr. Desta Leavine, and by Dr. Robert J. & Roberta Sokol
Antoni Cimolino will direct Molière’s great comedy The Miser. The production will use the translation by Ranjit Bolt, whose modern translation of Tartuffe was such a success in Stratford in 2017 that it moved on to Toronto in 2018.
Siblings Eleanor and Charles know that their widowed father, a paranoid old skinflint named Harper, won’t approve of their romantic choices – and what that’ll mean for their inheritances. And their plights only get worse when Harper announces startling marital plans of his own. Can nothing be done, for love or money? Or is there some way to have both?
TOM PATTERSON THEATRE PROGRAMMING
Support for the 2022 season of the Tom Patterson Theatre is generously provided by Daniel Bernstein & Claire Foerster
RICHARD III
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Antoni Cimolino
Production support is generously provided by Dr. M. Lee Myers, by Martie & Bob Sachs, by The Westaway Charitable Foundation, and by Catherine & David Wilkes
In addition to The Miser, Cimolino will direct this great Shakespearean tragedy, which holds historical significance as the first play ever performed at the Stratford Festival, back in 1953. Similarly, it will open the new Tom Patterson Theatre in 2022.
Charismatic, cunning and utterly ruthless, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, is the very embodiment of lethal ambition as he manoeuvres and murders his way to the throne of England. But once one reaches the top, the only way left is down – and in Richard’s growing roster of vengeful enemies, none are more menacing than the ghosts of his past.
ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Scott Wentworth
Production support is generously provided by Priscilla Costello, by the Tremain family, and by Jack Whiteside
Alongside Richard III, Cimolino has programmed Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well, the second play produced in the Festival’s first season in 1953. Scott Wentworth will direct this Shakespearean comedy of heartbreak and deception that indeed works out in the end.
Having made the impossible easy with a miraculous cure that saves the King of France from death, Helena, the orphaned daughter of a doctor, learns that some things are easier than others when she claims the hand of man beyond her social strata.
DEATH AND THE KING’S HORSEMAN
By Wole Soyinka
Directed by Tawiah M’Carthy
Production support is generously provided by Barbara & John Schubert
Death and the King’s Horseman by Nobel Prize-winning playwright Wole Soyinka will round out the Tom Patterson Theatre’s season in a production directed by Tawiah M’Carthy. The play was workshopped at the Festival between 2019 and 2021 and then earlier this year, Toronto’s Soulpepper Theatre Company partnered with the Festival to première an audio version of the play as part of its “Around the World in 80 Plays” series.
When an individual’s actions shake a world off its axis, how is honour restored? When a Yoruba King dies, the King’s horseman is required by tradition to accompany him into the afterlife. But this sacred ritual is interrupted after the death of King Alafin, resulting in an unforeseen tragedy involving his horseman, Elesin. Based on actual events in British-occupied Nigeria, this is a story of a community striving to uphold its culture in the face of colonial power.
AVON THEATRE PROGRAMMING
Schulich Children’s Plays
LITTLE WOMEN
World première
A Stratford Festival commission
Based on the novels Little Women and Good Wives by Louisa May Alcott
Adapted for the stage by Jordi Mand
Directed by Esther Jun
Next season’s Schulich Children’s Play will be Jordi Mand’s new stage adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s classic coming-of-age stories Little Women and Good Wives. Esther Jun, who directed this season’s I Am William and recently joined the Festival as the Director of the Langham Directors’ Workshop and Artistic Associate, Planning, will direct the production.
An endearing tale of hardship, love and sisterhood in, Little Women tells the story of the March family. Newly impoverished, Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy undertake their journey through life together, bound to each other and their beloved mother by fierce loyalty. From disappointments in love, to the trials of growing up, to exploring life outside the comforting walls of home, to a tragedy that turns their world upside down, it will take an unwavering sisterly bond and all of the girls’ courage to find happiness in the most unexpected places.
STUDIO THEATRE PROGRAMMING
EVERY LITTLE NOOKIE
World première
By Sunny Drake
Directed by ted witzel
Support for the creation of Every Little Nookie is generously provided by The Foerster Bernstein New Play Development Program
Sunny Drake’s Every Little Nookie recently won the Chris Tolley & Dharini Woollcombe Comedy Award from the Playwrights Guild of Canada. Having begun its development at the Stratford Festival when Drake was a writer in residence, the play will have its world première on the Studio stage, directed by ted witzel, the Festival’s Director of the Laboratory and Artistic Associate, Research and Development.
A broke millennial artist and her two lovers secretly organize “swingers” parties for middle-aged suburbanites at her boomer parents’ home. When the parents return unexpectedly, a wild ride ensues challenging each and every one of them to question what they know about… pretty much everything. Because it turns out that when you take on sex, you take on the basic unit of a how our world is organized. We’re in a period of remarkable change: from dealing with the pandemic to housing crises to wealth inequality to climate chaos. What would it take for us to work together on these enormous challenges? Every Little Nookie starts this epic question in the home, using a hilarious, scandalous and subversive romp to examine one of our most cherished sites of individualism: relationships.
HAMLET-911
World première
A Stratford Festival commission
By Ann-Marie MacDonald
Based on an idea by Alisa Palmer
Directed by Alisa Palmer
Support for the creation of Hamlet: 911 is generously provided by The Foerster Bernstein New Play Development Program
Hamlet-911 is a new play created by playwright/novelist/actor/broadcaster Ann-Marie MacDonald and director Alisa Palmer, Artistic Director of the National Theatre School of Canada, English Section. Developed over almost a decade at Stratford, this play uses the bones of Shakespeare’s great tragedy to tell a story very much about our time and the issues facing young people today.
Guinness Menzies has landed his dream role: he’s playing Hamlet at the Stratford Festival. But just before a matinée performance, he suddenly finds himself in the Underworld, a realm as frightening as it is hilarious, where time is seriously out of joint. Has he gone mad? Is he dreaming? Has he died? Meanwhile, a troubled teenager is wrestling online with his own version of Hamlet’s famous question.
1939
World première
A Stratford Festival commission
By Jani Lauzon and Kaitlyn Riordan
Directed by Jani Lauzon
Production support is generously provided by Karon Bales & Charles Beall and by M. Fainer.
Support for the creation of 1939 is generously provided by The Foerster Bernstein New Play Development Program
Jani Lauzon and Kaitlyn Riordan’s spirited new play will have its world première in the Studio Theatre, with Jani Lauzon directing.
The play is set in 1939 when a group of students at a fictional church-run residential school in Ontario are faced with the daunting task of putting on a play by William Shakespeare for the King and Queen of England on their first royal tour. But audience expectations vanish into thin air when the students, resilient and resourceful with hearts on their sleeves, find their own way into the text, determined to challenge the notion that there’s only one way to do Shakespeare. Born of both family legacy and calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 1939 has been guided by Indigenous Elders, Survivors, and ceremony throughout its several years of development.
Tickets for the 2022 season go on sale to Members of the Stratford Festival beginning on March 6 and to the public on March 18. For more information, contact the box office at 1.800.567.1600 or visit stratfordfestival.ca.