The Stratford Festival (formerly known as the Stratford Shakespearean Festival, the Stratford Festival of Canada, and the Stratford Shakespeare Festival) is a summer-long celebration of theatre held each year in
Stratford, Ontario.[1] Theatre-goers, actors, and playwrights flock to Stratford to take part—many of the greatest Canadian, American and British actors have played roles at Stratford. It was one of the first and is still one of the most prominent arts festivals in Canada.
The Festival's primary mandate is to present productions of Shakespeare's plays, but it also produces a wide variety of theatre from Greek tragedy to
Gilbert and Sullivan to Broadway musicals to contemporary works. By 2017, only three of the 14 productions were based on Shakespeare's works.[2] The following is a chronological list of the productions that have been staged as part of the Stratford Festival since its inception.
The 1986 season was staged by Artistic Director John Neville with Shakespeare plays produced against a modern play with similar themes or characters (i.e. Hamlet and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead).[4]
The 2015 season was staged by Artistic Director Antoni Cimolino around the theme of Discovery, with a selection of 13 plays that explore "eureka" moments
The 2020 season had a theme of Power, and was to mark the opening of the new Tom Patterson Theatre Centre.[5]
In March 2020, as preparations for the upcoming season were underway, the Festival was forced to announce performance cancellations and layoffs due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. A month later, the entire 2020 season was put on hold and effectively cancelled.[6][7] Just before the season's cancellation, Cimolino announced that all productions that had been filmed as part of the Stratford Festival On Film series would be streamed online for free, with a different production being shown each week.[8] Throughout the summer of 2020, the Festival produced four web series which, along with all the filmed productions and other Stratford documentaries and interviews, were launched in October 2020 on the new Stratfest@Home web streaming service.[9] Some of the cancelled stage productions were presented in subsequent seasons.
In April 2021, the Stratford Festival announced a season of plays and cabarets, most of which took place under canopies outside the Festival and Tom Patterson Theatres with reduced cast sizes and social distancing. Only Three Tall Women was presented indoors at the Studio Theatre.[10] The 2021 season theme was metamorphosis.[11]
Note: All 3 parts of Henry VI were performed in 1966 and 1980 in an abridged version. In 2002, using the Barton/Hall method of combining 1 Henry VI with the first half of 2 Henry VI, and the second half of 2 Henry VI with 3 Henry VI, the plays were renamed Henry VI: Revenge in France and Henry VI: Revolt in England. In 2016, "Richard II" and "1 Henry IV" were combined as were "2 Henry IV" and "Henry V". The Plays were renamed "Breath of Kings: Rebellion" and "Breath of Kings: Redemption".
Works by other authors produced three times or more