Stage Door News
Stage Door News
March 28, 2015… The Stratford Festival celebrated its 2014 season Saturday, a season noted for its superb productions, its breadth of Shakespearean exploration, and its leap into the digital world with Stratford Festival HD.
In this second season under the leadership of Artistic Director Antoni Cimolino and Executive Director Anita Gaffney, the Festival produced a dozen plays, six of which were extended to meet audience demand and three of which were filmed and released worldwide. It expanded the offerings of the burgeoning Stratford Festival Forum and nurtured talent through the nascent Laboratory, an incubator for experimentation, exploration and new work. All of this, and more, the Festival accomplished within its $57.4-million budget, while declaring a $795,000 surplus.
Reflecting on the season, Board Chair Chip Vallis congratulated Mr. Cimolino and Ms Gaffney, saying: “To witness the vision, imagination, drive, determination and sheer brilliance of these two people in action is as thrilling as any play.”
“I am so proud of the accomplishments of this company,” said Mr. Cimolino. “And I am thrilled that so much of what we accomplished was able to be transferred to three gorgeous films that are now taking our work around the world.”
The Festival raised $12.9 million towards its annual operating activities, as well as $1.2 million for Stratford Festival HD, for a total of $14.1 million, a 13.5% increase over the previous year. Contributions from government totalled $3.9 million, compared to $5 million the previous year. Overall attendance was 462,000, ahead of target by 2% [versus 480,000 in 2013 -Editor]. The Endowment transfer totalled $2.7 million, less than originally budgeted for the 2014 season.
“At our Annual General Meeting two years ago, we announced an operating deficit for the 2012 season of $3.4 million, and I shared with you our plans to address that issue,” said Ms Gaffney. “At last year’s AGM, we announced a substantial operating surplus, and we’ve been able to achieve another sizable surplus in 2014. We may not be completely out of the woods yet, but we are moving steadily and surely in the right direction, thanks to the generous support of our patrons, donors and volunteers, and the dedicated stewardship of our staff and company.
“Since 2012, we have trimmed expenses without impacting the experience for our patrons or our artists. Remarkably, we’ve found room to do so while introducing several new initiatives, such as the Stratford Festival HD project, the establishment of the Forum and the Lab, and producing the chamber Dream in a purpose-built space at the Masonic Hall. On the other side of the ledger, revenue is up from 2012 by almost $3 million, which largely results from the masterful work of our Advancement team.”
Shakespeare attendance up significantly
Marking the 450th anniversary of the birth of William Shakespeare, the Festival mounted five Shakespeares: King Lear, in a searing production directed by Mr. Cimolino, which became one of the top-selling Shakespeares in the Festival’s history; King John, directed by Tim Carroll; Antony and Cleopatra, directed by Gary Griffin; and, for the first time in Festival history two productions of the same title, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, one directed by Chris Abraham and one by Peter Sellars. Audiences responded to all of these titles with great enthusiasm, prompting an increase in Shakespeare sales of 24% over 2013, and 43% over 2012.
“Both of our 2014 versions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream pushed the boundaries of our audiences’ expectations, affording us a unique opportunity to explore more deeply the multiplicity of possibilities inherent in Shakespeare’s text,” said Mr. Cimolino.
“This kind of ground-breaking approach to our repertoire is one that I want to keep pursuing in the years ahead. There are countless ways in which we can investigate Shakespeare’s plays through adaptation, reinvention and other kinds of creative innovation. Even after more than 400 years, we’ve only just begun to explore the potential of these incredible works.
“The ‘infinite variety’ of Shakespearean possibility was also apparent in the gorgeous evocation of the ancient world in Gary Griffin’s Antony and Cleopatra and in Tim Carroll’s no less stunning original-practices approach to the seldom-performed King John. Those productions, directed by renowned artists from countries and theatre communities other than our own, speak to another aspect of our Festival’s strength: all the world can come to our stages, and bring different sensibilities to inform work that is nonetheless distinctively ours.”
Stratford Festival HD launches with three films
The 2014 season saw the filming of the first three productions for the massive Stratford Festival HD project, which will transform the Festival’s role in the wider world. Over the next 10 years it has committed to filming all of Shakespeare’s plays. The result will be the first-ever North American collection of the Shakespeare canon, a priceless artistic and educational resource for generations to come.
Stratford Festival HD kicked off with the critically acclaimed King Lear, starring Colm Feore, which premièred in February at roughly 400 cinemas across Canada, the U.S., the U.K., and Latvia. It will be rolling out to more international locations in the coming months. In April and May, King John – starring Tom McCamus and Seana McKenna – and Antony and Cleopatra – starring Geraint Wyn Davies and Yanna McIntosh – will première, rounding out the first installment of this important initiative.
“At this meeting last year, Antoni and I shared our aspiration to film the entire Shakespeare canon over the next 10 years,” said Ms Gaffney. “In just 14 months, we have raised the funds, shot and edited three productions and released the first title – King Lear – on 65 cinema screens in Canada and more than 330 screens in the U.S. and around the world. The feedback on that first film has truly been astonishing – a wonderful validation of our decision to embark on this dauntingly ambitious project. The première of King John will follow in April, and Antony and Cleopatra in May. In the fall, all three films will air on CBC TV, and then they will be released online and to the education market. They will endure as a priceless artistic and educational resource for generations to come.”
The Festival created a lasting memory of another hit production in 2014: the Stratford cast recording of Crazy for You, the first cast recording of a Stratford musical. Plans are already in place for the second Stratford cast recording, this one of Carousel.
The Festival is also sharing work created in Stratford at live venues throughout North America. In January, A Word or Two with Christopher Plummer, which was originally produced for the 2012 Stratford season, was presented at the Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles. Alice Through the Looking-Glass, commissioned by the Festival for the 1994 season from Canadian playwright James Reaney, is enjoying new life across the country. This “brillig” production, directed by Jillian Keiley and designed by Brette Gerecke, presented in Stratford in 2014 and produced in association with the National Arts Centre, was re-mounted at the NAC in December using actors from the NAC’s resident ensemble. Using the Festival’s creative concepts, sets, props and costumes, a number of other companies will re-mount the show, beginning with the Charlottetown Festival in P.E.I. this summer, followed by the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre in Winnipeg and the Citadel in Edmonton.
Forum attracts 30,000 people
In 2014, more than 200 events were presented as part of the second annual Stratford Festival Forum, exploring both Shakespeare and the season theme of Madness: Minds Pushed to the Edge. Forum sessions ranged from Margaret Trudeau’s talk about her journey through mental illness to New York hip-hop artist Devon Glover’s showcase of Shakespeare’s sonnets; from James Orbinski’s discussion of the madness of war and the world inhabited by humanitarian workers to Camille Paglia’s examination of Shakespeare and misogyny. Showcases included Hawksley Workman’s The God That Comes, four play-readings through Geraint Wyn Davies’ WordPlay series, concert performances of Next to Normal and a Chilina Kennedy cabaret. Forum attendance topped 30,000 for the season.
A partnership with CBC Ideas saw a number of Forum events featured on the CBC’s top-rated radio program, further extending the reach of the Festival and showcasing the exploration of thought and theatre happening in Stratford. The Ideas documentaries included In Rehearsal: Becoming Lear; Madness and the Prolonged War; Letters from the Front (marking the 100th anniversary of the First World War), Bottom’s Dream and Shakespeare’s Web with Peter Sellars; and Who Wrote Shakespeare’s Plays.
Another joint venture, this one with the Stratford Perth Museum, brought Canada’s only copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio to Stratford from the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library for a special Shakespeare 450 exhibition. This partnership continues in 2015, with a touring exhibition from Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, which will serve as a complement to the production of The Diary of Anne Frank.
The Laboratory, which Mr. Cimolino created in 2013 to keep innovation and growth central to the experience of the Festival’s creative artists, offered 100 sessions in 2014, including master classes with guest artists, small sessions and one-on-one classes with specialists, and vital conversations on the subjects of diversity, gender and mental health within the theatre industry. Two extended explorations were conducted by visiting directors within the season using Expressive Mask, Suzuki and Viewpoints methods. The Lab introduced a new three-week development initiative called the Incubator, in which two projects in development were extensively workshopped in repertory, culminating in a free presentation. Exciting new work continues to emerge from the Lab, including The Last Wife – which is part of the 2015 season – written by former company member Kate Hennig, and workshopped over two seasons in Stratford.
Moving forward, the Lab will be the centre for some research and work with the First Nations community as well as post-secondary theatre-training organizations. A workshop with First Nations directors will begin a dialogue about various ways of tackling the canon from a First Nations perspective. Through the Lab, the Festival will take part in a national discussion on the state and role of theatrical training in Canada, during which it hopes to share information about the work being undertaken in Stratford and also to find new perspectives to bring back to the Festival, especially with regards to diversity of practice.
“In the quality of the work we created, the stimulation we offered the mind, and the nourishment we offered the heart and the spirit, the 2014 season was one of triumphant achievement,” said Mr. Cimolino. “But it is not enough for us to do great work; that achievement means nothing unless it is seen and felt by the world. With the launch of Stratford Festival HD and our renewed focus on tours, transfers and the development of new work, we are clearly succeeding in getting the word out – and not just the word, but the work. That’s the thing of which I’m proudest: that the work of our wonderful Canadian artists is being seen by the world – and the world is realizing just what it has been missing.”
The Stratford Festival’s 2015 season gets underway April 21. It features Hamlet, The Taming of the Shrew, Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Adventures of Pericles, The Sound of Music, Carousel, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Physicists, Possible Worlds, She Stoops to Conquer, Oedipus Rex, The Alchemist and The Last Wife. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit www.stratfordfestival.ca or call the box office at 1.800.567.1600.
2015-03-28
Stratford: Attendance at Stratford Festival declined from 480,000 in 2013 to 462,000 in 2014