Stage Door News
Stage Door News
April 2, 2015… This season’s Stratford Festival Forum continues to take shape with an impressive lineup of some of the world’s most engaging intellectuals, artists and cultural figures including Brent Carver, Adrienne Clarkson, Allan Hawco, Stephen Lewis, Ann-Marie Macdonald, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, John Mighton, Dr. Samantha Nutt and John Ralston Saul.
With more than 200 events, the 2015 Forum explores the playbill and the theme of Discovery: That Eureka Moment. Newly confirmed Forum sessions range from a fascinating look at issues of dress and class with Rona Maynard and Larry Rosen to a discussion about the remarkable discovery of the Franklin expedition ship, in which Jim Balsillie brings together Adam Gopnik, Ryan Harris, Bill Noon, Douglas Stenton and Paul Watson.
The Festival’s partnership with CBC Ideas, which saw a number of last season’s Forum events featured on the top-rated radio program, continues in 2015 with an inspired series that brings together former Massey lecturers and other special guests to discuss contemporary social and political issues.
CBC Ideas: the Massey Lectures Discovery Series
CBC Radio’s Ideas: The Discovery of the Self
Friday, July 10, 10 to 11:30 a.m.
Studio Theatre
The idea of the self, as we understand it today, seems quite different from the way in which people of a previous era might have thought of themselves. Where does the idea of the individual self come from, and how does our sense of ourselves shape how we function in the world? What roles do culture and gender play? Featuring CBC Massey lecturer and writer for The New Yorker Adam Gopnik, with psychologist Susan Pinker and literature professor Irwin Gopnik, and moderated by Ideas host Paul Kennedy.
CBC Radio’s Ideas: The Discovery of Other Worlds
Saturday, July 18, 10:30 a.m. to noon
Studio Theatre
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” says Hamlet. If there’s one thing we’ve learned in our time, it’s that in reaching the boundaries of human knowledge, there are great puzzles. In the sciences, the new things we’re finding don’t fit with what we already know; in politics and human affairs, the norms of how we might live together are challenged and cracking. Featuring CBC Massey lecturer and Founding Director of the Munk Centre for Global Affairs Janice Gross Stein, with undersea explorer Dr. Joe MacInnis and science writer Jay Ingram, and moderated by Ideas host Paul Kennedy.
CBC Radio’s Ideas: The Discovery of Democracy
Saturday, July 25, 10:30 a.m. to noon
Studio Theatre
Democracy seems to be in peril. If, not so long ago, we thought we were at the “end of history,” with the seeming triumph of democracy around the world, these days we’re maybe not so sure. There are challenges to the idea of a secular society, challenges to the idea of shared values. Is society infinitely elastic, embracing all, or are there norms we can legitimately demand of citizens? Very old and very new ideas leave us rethinking what we thought we knew. Featuring CBC Massey lecturer and public intellectual John Ralston Saul, with The Globe and Mail columnist Doug Saunders, and artist and writer Angela Sterritt of the Gitxsan Nation of B.C., and moderated by Ideas host Paul Kennedy.
· This event will be live streamed: http://stratfordfestival.ca/livestream.
CBC Radio’s Ideas: The Discovery of the Empty Space
Sunday, August 9, 10 to 11:30 a.m.
Studio Theatre
When a director approaches a bare stage with a play, it’s with two questions in mind: what is the story and how can my team of actors and other artists tell this story through their bodies, these words and the toolkit of imagination? How are we to fill this empty space? Directors at this season’s Stratford Festival, including Artistic Director Antoni Cimolino, director of Hamlet and The Alchemist, and John Caird, director of Love’s Labour’s Lost, explore the challenges of directing with Ideas host Paul Kennedy.
CBC Radio’s Ideas: The Discovery of Human Rights
Saturday, August 15, 10 to 11:30 a.m.
Studio Theatre
The modern concept of human rights, coming out of the ashes of World War II and the Holocaust – this idea that all of us have at least one thing in common, the right to be treated with equity and respect – has profoundly changed our world: genocide and slavery, famine and the oppression of women are no longer acceptable norms. But what of the future? What have we achieved, and how do we move forward? Featuring diplomat, humanitarian and CBC Massey lecturer Stephen Lewis, with journalist and human rights activist Sally Armstrong, and Payam Akhavan, former prosecutor with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and moderated by Ideas host Paul Kennedy.
· This event will be live streamed: http://stratfordfestival.ca/livestream.
CBC Radio’s Ideas: The Discovery of the Heart
Sunday, August 23, 10:30 a.m. to noon
Studio Theatre
There are visible and invisible worlds. In politics and society, we’ve created entire structures of law and norms of behaviour, and we think that by following these outward and visible signs of how to live together, that’s it, we’ve built a society. But then – how do so many similar societies seem to be so different? Physicists tell us that perhaps there are parallel universes. Is there a parallel universe of the heart where we might find the real values that make us tick? Maybe it’s not law and government that makes a good society, maybe it’s something far deeper. Featuring former governor general and CBC Massey lecturer Adrienne Clarkson, with writer Ian Brown and former street kid and United Church minister turned politician Cheri DiNovo, and moderated by Ideas host Paul Kennedy.
New additions to the Forum lineup
Exciting new additions to this season’s Forum lineup include:
The Problem of Abundance
Saturday, June 20, 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.
Festival Theatre lobby
Shakespeare’s plays and poems are only a small fraction of the remaining printed texts of the early modern period. Through rhetorical schematics, Professor Michael Ullyat uses computation to systematically investigate Shakespeare’s use of language compared to his contemporaries in order to determine if it is exceptional in any intrinsic way, beyond its attribution to the famous writer.
The Spoke
Friday, June 26, 9 to 10:30 p.m.
Revel Caffè, 37 Market Place, Stratford
A special Forum edition of Outside the March’s monthly storytelling night and podcast, featuring true tales told by members of Stratford’s company on the theme of self-discovery. Hosted by Mitchell Cushman and Katherine Cullen.
The Men Who Changed Broadway
Wednesday, July 1, 10:45 a.m. to noon
Studio Theatre
Together and apart, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II changed the course of the American musical. Robert Cushman examines the achievements and significance of two of the most talented and influential figures of the 20th-century theatre, with highlights performed by members of the company.
Reconstructing Shakespeare’s Songbook
Tuesday, July 21, 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.
Chalmers Lounge, Avon Theatre
For nearly 400 years, Shakespeare lovers lamented that few songs in his plays survived with original music. In Shakespeare’s Songbook, Ross W. Duffin brought all of Shakespeare’s musical source material together for the first time and, in the process, shed new light on the delicate interplay between words, music and drama in the plays.
The How and the Why
Friday, July 24, 7:30 to 10 p.m.
Avon Theatre Rehearsal Hall 1
Evolution and emotion collide in Sarah Treem’s thought-provoking and sharp play about science, family and survival of the fittest. On the eve of a prestigious conference, an up-and-coming evolutionary biologist wrestles for the truth with an established leader in the field. This intimate and keenly perceptive play explores the difficult choices faced by women of every generation. Presented by In the Company of Women, an ongoing dialogue in the Laboratory about women in theatre.
John Mighton: Art, Science and Education
Tuesday, August 18, 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.
Festival Theatre Lobby
Almost every child is born with a sense of wonder and curiosity that makes them able to excel in math and science, and love learning these subjects. But by the time they graduate, most students are convinced that the sciences are boring and beyond their grasp. The writer of Possible Worlds and The Little Years talks about the ways our culture and society might be enriched if we were to nurture the full intellectual potential of our children.
Age of Arousal
Sunday, August 30, 7:30 to 10 p.m.
Avon Theatre Rehearsal Hall 1
A reading of this lavish, sexy play about the forbidden and gloriously liberated self by the late, great Canadian playwright Linda Griffiths. It is 1885 and virtue is barely holding down its petticoats. Five New Women struggle to find their way in the topsy-turvy world of the Victorian suffrage movement. Directed by Martha Henry.
Hamlet’s Appeal
Saturday, September 12, 10 to 11:30 a.m.
Festival Theatre
Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin returns to preside over the appeal of Hamlet in the murder of Polonius. Dr. David Goldbloom stars as an expert witness for the defence.
· This event will be live streamed: http://stratfordfestival.ca/livestream.
Exploring the Perimeter: Where Art Meets Science
Saturday, September 26, 10 to 11:30 a.m.
Studio Theatre
Lee Smolin, co-winner of the 2015 Buchalter Prize in Cosmology, theoretical physicist and faculty member at the Perimeter Institute, and Michael Healey, playwright and adaptor of The Physicists, in a conversation on the intersections of art and science in their respective work. Co-presented by the Perimeter Institute.
Reading of Copenhagen
Sunday, September 27, 8 to 10 p.m.
Perimeter Institute, 31 Caroline Street North, Waterloo
A reading of excerpts of the Tony Award-winning play by Michael Frayn of a meeting between physicists Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg with related discussions by leading contemporary physicists on the science in the play.
New guests confirmed for previously announced events
Guests have been added for these highly anticipated events:
Rediscovering the Goddess
Wednesday, June 17, 10:45 a.m. to noon
Studio Theatre
In The Adventures of Pericles and other late plays by the Bard, tragedy is averted by the intervention, actions and power of the female characters. Celebrated writer Ann-Marie Macdonald, actor Deborah Hay and director Scott Wentworth examine this feminist interpretation in a panel moderated by Shakespearean scholar Dr. Philippa Sheppard.
Playing With Words in Love’s Labour’s Lost and Hamlet
Sunday, June 21, 10:30 to noon
Studio Theatre
Hamlet and Love’s Labour’s Lost – a great tragedy and an early comedy – both call on the actors’ skill with a range of different kinds of comic writing. Russell Jackson explores this vital element of Shakespeare’s world of entertainment in discussion with Seana McKenna and Juan Chioran.
Why We Do What We Do
Wednesday, July 8, 10:45 to noon
Studio Theatre
Domestic violence is unfortunately as prevalent today as when Carousel broke ground presenting such a dynamic in the context of musical theatre. Filmmaker and survivor Attiya Khan, Dr. Peter Jaffe (Centre for Research and Education on Violence Against Women & Children) and Michele Hansen (Executive Director, Huron Women’s Shelter) uncover the complexities on both sides of violent relationships in this discussion moderated by renowned documentarian Karin Wells.
The Franklin Discovery
Saturday, July 11, 10 to 11 a.m.
Avon Theatre
Jim Balsillie brings together Douglas Stenton, Director of Heritage for the Government of Nunavut, Captain Bill Noon from the Canadian Coast Guard, Parks Canada underwater archaeologist Ryan Harris and cultural commentator Adam Gopnik in a panel moderated by Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Paul Watson to share and discuss the discovery of Franklin’s ship HMS Erebus and explore what this find means for our country, in scientific, social and cultural terms.
· This event will be live streamed: http://stratfordfestival.ca/livestream.
Is there a Canadian Canon?
Sunday, July 12, 10 to 11:30 a.m.
Studio Theatre
Some of Canada’s leading artists, including Republic of Doyle’s Allan Hawco, debate the existence of a Canadian canon of dramatic work. What makes a piece seminal? How important is it for that work to be seen more broadly? Moderated by Bob White.
Being Hamlet
Wednesday, July 29, 10:45 a.m. to noon
Chalmers Lounge, Avon Theatre
Actors Ben Carlson, Brent Carver, Jonathan Goad and Stephen Ouimette have all tackled the role of Hamlet at the Festival. They come together to discuss the impact of playing this seminal role on their lives and work in this special panel moderated by Paul Kennedy.
Shrew’d
Wednesday, August 12, 10:45 a.m. to noon
Studio Theatre
The role of Kate in The Taming of the Shrew is recognized as one of the hardest roles for an actor to reconcile – particularly in a feminist and post-feminist world. Fortunately Stratford has several wonderful women who have done just that and have lived to tell the tale. Moderated by Margaret Jane Kidnie, with Deborah Hay, Seana McKenna, Lucy Peacock and Irene Poole.
Do Clothes Make the Man (or Woman)?
Wednesday, August 26, 10:45 a.m. to noon
Studio Theatre
Rona Maynard, former editor of Chatelaine, and Larry Rosen, CEO of Harry Rosen Inc., address contemporary issues of dress and class in this unique Forum offering. Polonius’s line in Hamlet, “the apparel oft proclaims the man,” is further revealed in the world of She Stoops to Conquer, and continues to fascinate us today.
Education for Transformation
Wednesday, September 2, 10:45 a.m. to noon
Studio Theatre
Actor Maev Beaty hosts this special session with author Marina Nemat, Dr. Samantha Nutt of War Child Canada and pioneering historian Dr. Natalie Zemon Davis to discuss the global impact of prioritizing the education of girls.
For tickets, contact the box office at 1.800.567.1600 or visit stratfordfestival.ca/forum.
Sustaining support for the Forum is generously provided by Kelly & Michael Meighen and the T.R. Meighen Foundation.
Support for the 2015 season of the Forum is provided in memory of Dr. W. Philip Hayman.
The 2015 season, which runs from April 21 to October 18, features Hamlet, The Sound of Music, Carousel, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Taming of the Shrew, She Stoops to Conquer, The Physicists, The Alchemist, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Oedipus Rex, Possible Worlds, The Last Wife and The Adventures of Pericles. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit stratfordfestival.ca or call 1.800.567.1600.
Photo: Interior of the Festival Theatre. ©1974.
2015-04-02
Stratford: Roster of guests continues to grow at Stratford Festival Forum