The Shaw Story WHAT MAKES THE SHAW SPECIAL MANDATE The Shaw Festival is the only theatre in the world that specializes exclusively in plays by Bernard Shaw and his contemporaries, and in plays about the period of Shaw's lifetime. We are one of the few theatre companies that have a permanent acting company, and the only one in the world which specializes in such a defined historical period. The Shaw Festival is renowned internationally for single-handedly revitalizing and re-energizing the works of Bernard Shaw, and tackling the vast array of theatre pieces in our mandate - presenting them anew to appreciative theatre audiences. The Shaw's mandate was expanded in 2000 to also include contemporary plays written about the period of Bernard Shaw's life, 1856-1950. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW As Artistic Director Jackie Maxwell says, "We all know the man can talk, but Bernard Shaw is also one of the most prescient, provocative, sparklingly articulate writers in the English language. His words and ideas, expressed in plays that are well-known, such as this season's Mrs Warren’s Profession, or in plays that are not so familiar but no less interesting, have extraordinary relevance today. It is a joy to draw attention to those ideas and bring them to life on our stages." In 2008, Mrs Warren’s Profession (its fourth appearance at The Shaw) will run in repertory with Getting Married (also in its fourth appearance). UNCOVERED GEMS One of the many pleasures of The Shaw's mandate period is digging up undiscovered theatrical treasures, or plays which were considered major works when they were written but which have since been unjustly neglected. Remarkable playwrights such as J.B. Priestley, St John Hankin and Harley Granville Barker have all been rediscovered by the Shaw Festival. This season’s The Stepmother, written by Githa Sowerby, the author of The Shaw’s acclaimed 2004 production Rutherford and Son, had one private performance in 1924 and, despite the clamoring of critics, was never published. Literally found in a box in the basement of the Samuel French company, the play receives its North American premiere at The Shaw this season. AMERICAN CLASSICS We embrace the full range of American classics - comedies as well as dramas. Recent seasons have produced critically acclaimed productions of The Autumn Garden, Bus Stop, You Can't Take It With You, Picnic, The Man Who Came to Dinner, Detective Story, Ah Wilderness and The Crucible. The richly diverse choices continued last season with The Shaw’s first production of a Tennessee Williams play, Summer and Smoke. This year we celebrate the best of American theatre with a production of Lillian Hellman’s timeless drama The Little Foxes. MUSICALS The Shaw takes a unique approach to musicals; just as the reach of musical theatre is vast and manifold, so is our approach to being able to present Brecht and Weill, Rodgers and Hart, and everything in between – and being able to choose the right theatre for each production. We cast our musicals with the finest singers and actors from our company; we are proud of the detailed expression they bring to these musical works. Rarely-performed musical gems from the period of our mandate, such as Happy End, are rediscovered and returned to the stage. The 2004 production of Floyd Collins demonstrated an additional vision for our musicals - it's a contemporary musical based on a true story from the mandate period. The range of musicals we have revived over the years includes Gypsy (our first musical on the Festival stage), High Society, She Loves Me, Merrily We Roll Along, On the Twentieth Century, Pal Joey and Mack and Mabel. Also last year we presented the first new musical developed and produced here at The Shaw, Tristan, by Music Director Paul Sportelli and Ensemble member Jay Turvey. This year The Shaw presents the musical adventure Wonderful Town, as well as two Stephen Sondheim favourites: A Little Night Music and a concert production of Follies. CLASSICS FROM THE PERIOD Early Victorian dramas such as The Silver King and vast pieces like Cavalcade require large casts, complex designs and specialized historical knowledge. They are rarely attempted by other professional companies, but at The Shaw we relish the opportunity to explore these works with a modern audience. We also present European classics such as The House of Bernarda Alba from Spain, S.S.Tenacity from France, and The Plough and the Stars from Ireland. CONTEMPORARY EXPLORATIONS OF THE MANDATE Artistic Director Jackie Maxwell's approach to the mandate period is "to look at the mandate from the outside as well as the inside - to provide creative friction by juxtaposing the old and the new - and with Canadian work, to let us hear and promote our own stories and our own points of view. I want the Shaw Festival to be the place where classic Canadian and contemporary plays can be given a uniquely detailed, thoughtful and vivid new life." This was the case with the acclaimed productions of Michel Marc Bouchard’s The Coronation Voyage (2003) and of Lillian Groag's The Magic Fire (2006). GRAND DESIGN Every production that graces the Shaw Festival stages is built “from scratch,” from an original design. Although The Shaw sometimes revisits plays in its canon, the design is always created for that director and those actors in the new production. Each element is painstakingly researched, designed and created to enhance that particular production. Design Director William Schmuck and Lighting Design Director Kevin Lamotte lead teams who collaborate with each production’s director to create set, costume and lighting designs that complement the play’s text. Meticulous historical research is combined with creative instincts and an understanding of the play. MUSIC AT THE SHAW Music played an important role in Bernard Shaw's life - in fact, he wrote music criticism for several years under the pseudonym Corno di Bassetto. Our Music Director Paul Sportelli creates new orchestrations for virtually all our musical productions. As well, he frequently composes original scores for dramatic presentations, or commissions scores from other contemporary composers. On selected Sundays our Music Department gives free coffee concerts in the lobby of the Festival Theatre. THE ACTING ENSEMBLE The Shaw Festival's permanent acting company is unique in the English-speaking world. Jackie Maxwell believes the actors are "the ones who ultimately carry on stage what I see to be the true spirit of the Shaw Festival. At The Shaw we draw from the vast wealth of the best plays from 1856 to today. Led by our unequalled theatre artists, we explore each world with a passion and vitality that renders the stories anew, the pain and joy of each character vividly played out with a balletic combination of speed, energy, reflection and detail, using heart, viscera and brain." THE ACADEMY OF THE SHAW FESTIVAL The Academy is the professional training, play development, publishing and public education wing of the company. It began in 1985 as an informal skills exchange among company members, and still retains that important function. The Academy also sponsors workshop productions and the annual Directors Project as well as many outreach programmes for the public, including the Shaw Seminars, Saturday Conversations, and tours for groups and the public. PROFESSIONAL TRAINING Each season, The Academy engages coaches in Alexander Technique, voice and dialect as well as salaried apprentices in acting, directing, design and stage management. Short courses are offered on a variety of topics, including the popular "Manners of the Mandate", and movement training to maintain actors' strength and flexibility throughout the long Shaw season. The annual Directors Project is of particular interest to the company. It features Ensemble members in two one-act plays - directed by our Intern Directors and designed by Assistant Designers - presented to company members and to an invited audience of theatre professionals. PLAY DEVELOPMENT There are two main goals of The Shaw's play development programme, which is led by Artistic Director Jackie Maxwell and Literary Manager Joanna Falck. The first is to develop new adaptations and translations that will tell classic stories in a contemporary way. The second is to produce new plays that can sit alongside those of Shaw, Chekhov and Coward. For example, The Shaw premiered a commissioned translation of Chekhov's Three Sisters at the Festival Theatre in 2003. Writer Ann-Marie MacDonald's play Belle Moral was "workshopped" by Acting Ensemble members at The Shaw as she was completing final drafts of the play, which was eventually presented as part of our 2005 season. The play is remounted this season, in preparation for a planned national tour. Throughout the season, established and developing playwrights are in residence at The Shaw, and the Acting Ensemble often participate in in-house workshops of new plays. Other intriguing writing projects that began through this programme are Morris Panych’s Hotel Peccadillo, an adaptation of the Georges Feydeau and Maurice Desvallières farce L’Hôtel du Libre-Echange, and Paul Sportelli and Jay Turvey’s new musical Tristan, both presented last season, as well as this season’s production of Ferenc Molnár’s The President, newly adapted by Morwyn Brebner. Projects currently in development include a play about the Danish playwright Kaj Munk, by playwright-in-residence Dave Carley, and an adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s short story The Canterville Ghost with Theatre Beyond Words. The Shaw is also in the early stages of developing a multi-disciplinary piece based on the book A Nervous Splendor by Frederick Morton. PUBLIC EDUCATION We believe the more you know about theatre, the more you will enjoy it.