STUDIO THEATRE Three Tall Women FESTIVAL THE THEATRE CANOPY R + J CABARETS Why We Tell the Story 2021 You Can’t Stop the Beat Play On! Freedom Finally There’s Sun TOM PATTERSON SEASON THEATRE CANOPY A Midsummer Night’s Dream The Rez Sisters I Am William GUIDE Serving Elizabeth JULY – OCTOBER stratfordfestival.ca 1.800.567.1600 | 519.273.1600 1 1 800 567 1600 | 519 273 1600 STRATFORDFESTIVAL.CA 2 But far from placing limitations on our creativity, the need to work within the parameters required of us – with shorter performances, smaller casts (no more than eight actors WORLDS WITHOUT WALLS per show) and physical distancing on stage – has stimulated our artists to new Two young people are in love. They’re next-door neighbours, but their families don’t get feats of imagination as they devise novel on. So they’re not allowed to meet: all they can do is whisper sweet nothings to each modes of performance. Our 2021 playbill other through a small gap in the garden wall between them. Eventually, they plan to run o encompasses Shakespeare, music, modern together – but on the night of their elopement, a terrible accident of fate impels them both classics and new work, presented in ways to take their own lives. you’ve never seen at Stratford before. Sound familiar? It’s the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, as told by the ancient Roman poet And it’s not only the pandemic that Ovid, one of Shakespeare’s favourite authors. Most of us know it from the comical play- has opened us up to new ideas and within-the-play in A Midsummer Night’s Dream – but it’s also essentially the same story experiences. The Black Lives Matter Shakespeare told in Romeo and Juliet. protests of last summer brought home to It certainly resonates with us today. We know what it’s like to be isolated in our homes, us how far our society still remains from separated from our loved ones, reduced to interacting through online equivalents of a hole overcoming those other dividing barriers in the wall. And we know about other barriers, too: walls of prejudice, mistrust and hatred of systemic inequity and oppression. So that can be as fatal as any pandemic. our playbill celebrates dierence as well as But there’s more to Ovid’s story. The blood of the lovers, seeping into the ground, is universality, widening our definitions both absorbed by the roots of a mulberry bush – and turns its berries from white to a deep and of a classic and of who we are. To learn vibrant red. And with that metamorphosis comes the families’ realization of the tragedy their more about our work on anti-racism please enmity has wrought. visit our website. That idea of metamorphosis, of awakening and new growth arising from loss, informs our 2021 The pandemic has taken a dreadful toll, season. Our artists, like the rest of us, have been living through a time of seismic shock to their both in lives and in lingering psychological psyches – but it has also been a time of transformative regeneration. It’s as if we’ve been in a eects. We at the Festival may be cocoon, and now it’s time to emerge in a blaze of new colour, with lively, searching work that powerless against the former, but we have deals with profound questions and prompts us to think and see in new ways. a crucial role to play in addressing the latter. If theatre has anything to teach us, it While I do intend to program in future seasons all the plays we’d planned to present in 2020, I is about the resilience of the human spirit. also know we can’t just pick up where we left o. The world has changed; we have changed. Something huge has happened to us and within us. How do we express that together? Our new season was born of our determination to emerge from this crisis In one significant sense, 2021 sees us return to our roots. Two open-sided canopies, one more inventive, more inclusive and more erected at the Festival Theatre and the other on the grounds of the new Tom Patterson creative than ever. I hope it will excite Theatre, shelter appropriately distanced seats. Sharing the same visually gorgeous design, you and engage you, bring renewed joy these structures enable audiences to gather in safety and comfort in the open air. into your life and inspire you as we dream But more than that, they bring an inherently festive quality to the season. Just like our together of a world without walls. original tent in 1953, these new canopies signal that a very special event is taking place here in Stratford: a new artistic beginning. Meanwhile, we have also been able to make provision for limited-capacity indoor performances at the Studio Theatre. As always, your safety, and the safety of our artists and sta, is our very first priority, and all three of our 2021 venues will operate in strict Antoni Cimolino accordance with public-health guidelines. Artistic Director PHOTOGRAPHY BY SCOTT WISHART STRATFORDFESTIVAL.CA 1 A WORLD BEATING COMBINATION LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Outstanding theatre presented in a Welcome. It is a great privilege to share stories on this beautiful territory, which has been beautiful setting, rich in ancient tradition, the site of human activity – and therefore storytelling – for many thousands of years. that invites communion with friends, This territory is governed by two treaties. The first is the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt moments for reflection and Instagram- Covenant of 1701, made between the Anishinaabe and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, worthy photos: that’s the combination that an agreement to set violence aside and peacefully share and care for the land in the Great makes a visit to Stratford such a sublime Lakes Basin. The second is the Huron Tract Treaty of 1827, an agreement made by eighteen pleasure. Anishinaabek Chiefs and the Canada Company, an agency of the British Crown. As an In 2021, our city’s lush parklands become organization and as individuals, we at the Stratford Festival are in a process of learning how even more of a complement to the artistry we can be better treaty partners. on our stages as we mount a season of We wish to honour the ancestral guardians of this land and its waterways: the Anishinaabe, plays and cabarets under two beautifully the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the Wendat, and the Neutrals. Today many Indigenous designed outdoor canopies. You can enjoy peoples continue to call this land home and act as its stewards, and this responsibility our performances, both indoors and out, extends to all peoples, to share and care for this land for generations to come. safe in the knowledge that the Festival has received the World Travel and Tourism Council’s #SafeTravelsStamp, recognizing we have adopted worldwide standards for health and hygiene at our outdoor and STRATFORD IS BACK SO STAY IN TOUCH! indoor facilities. On page 20 you’ll find our We’re delighted to welcome you in our spaces this summer and you’ll find much duty of care statement that outlines all the of the information you need to plan your visit in the following pages. But there’s measures we’re taking to keep you safe at still more to come! the Stratford Festival this year. The Meighen Forum will feature performances, readings, speakers, panels and For those of you unable to join us this workshops for you to enjoy in person or online via STRATFEST@HOME. A full summer, we plan to film and stream our schedule will be available soon. season oerings on our digital platform, STRATFEST@HOME. STRATFEST@HOME, our digital subscription service, will stream filmed versions of many of our 2021 productions! Details will be announced later this summer. Either way, whether you visit us in person or virtually in the comfort of your own Watch our website to find out more. For earliest notification, make sure you’ve home, we look forward to sharing with given us permission to email you so that we can let you know about these you the world’s best theatre experiences, oerings and any further announcements about our season. Simply log into in a Stratford Festival season like no other. your account to update your profile or call our box o¦ce at 1.800.567.1600. TABLE OF CONTENTS Anita Ganey The Plays 4 Season at a Glance 21 Executive Director The Cabarets 10 Season Calendar 22 PHOTOGRAPHY BY SCOTT WISHART Care Commitment 20 Accessibility 29 2 1 800 567 1600 | 519 273 1600 STRATFORDFESTIVAL.CA 3 STUDIO THEATRE | AUGUST 10¬OCTOBER 9 | OPENING AUGUST 19 FESTIVAL THEATRE CANOPY | AUGUST 12¬SEPTEMBER 26 | OPENING AUGUST 15 EDWARD ALBEE’S R + J BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE THREE TALL WOMEN ADAPTED BY RAVI JAIN, CHRISTINE HORNE AND ALEX BULMER DIRECTED BY DIANA LEBLANC DIRECTED BY RAVI JAIN JUST WHEN YOU THINK YOU KNOW SOMEONE . PRODUCED IN COLLABORATION WITH WHY NOT THEATRE By turns acerbic, anguished and sarcastically funny, an old woman known to us only as “A” lays bare her inner THERE’S MORE TO LOVE THAN MEETS THE EYE life in sometimes shocking detail to two others: a middle-aged caregiver identified only as “B” and a young They say that love is blind – and with blindness comes the freedom to open the mind’s eye to a world of legal professional, “C.” limitless possibility. Likewise, the challenge of staging the world’s most famous love story, Romeo and Juliet, in Originally programmed for our 2020 season, Albee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, which he called an a time of physical distancing brings with it the opportunity to explore modes of theatrical presentation that are “exorcism” of his own troubled relationship with his adoptive mother, is a profound meditation on aging, death both unexpectedly novel and as old as the art of storytelling itself.