Stage Door News
Stage Door News
The Stratford Festival's HD series has hit the mark.
With the first three efforts in putting Shakespeare's plays to film having earned nine nominations and one win at the Canadian Screen Awards, the Festival has shown that it can maintain its high standards in an entirely different medium.
“I think what these nominations are about is the artistic quality of what we've been able to create,” artistic director Antoni Cimolino said Thursday. “And that's critical. If there was a misfire on this or it wasn't of the same quality as we do on our stages, then it just wouldn't work. It's got to represent us well.”
The first instalment of plays – King Lear, King John, and Antony and Cleopatra – received nine nominations in January. King Lear, directed by Cimolino, was announced as winner of the Best Performing Arts Program at a gala Wednesday night at the Westin Harbour Castle hotel in Toronto.*
In a room packed with the best of Canada's film and television industry, Cimolino said it was wonderful to celebrate Stratford's latest work, but also to “talk to them about the fact that over the last 60-plus years some of the finest work done by Canadian actors and directors and designers and craftspeople have happened on the Stratford Festival stages.
“Because of the nature of theatre, which is so ephemeral, those performances are gone – they melt away. The great thing about Stratford Festival HD is that we can not only preserve those performances but we can also share them with audiences not only across Canada but around the world,” Cimolino said.
Last year, attendance for the HD series was just under 200,000, equal to about 40 per cent of the Festival's total audience.
“That's just in the first year so it's reasonable to think that as people know it's there and look for it, that it will grow in attendance,” said Cimolino, who has called the HD series “a wonderful complement” to live performances. “For people in Vancouver or the U.S. who can't get here, this is something that will let them now what Stratford's about and will whet their appetite.
“I think we all have to be confident enough to know that this is a great way to reach out and build new audiences and won't distract from our base. The use just for teachers and education alone validates the effort.”
That effort involved 10 cameras and 128 channels of sound and myriad decisions about audio and camera angles and movement.
“There were a lot of decisions that had to be made for how to create the sense for a person showing up in a movie theatre that they are watching a play that is front of a live audience, but then they can lose all that and look very closely into Lear's eyes as his world falls apart,” Cimolino said.
“If we hadn't found a successful way of making it transfer, it would be really evident. It's a funny hybrid. It's not just about the play, it's about creating a new thing between that and film.”
The Festival's ambitious 10-year plan will see all 37 of Shakespeare's plays put onto film.
The Canadian Screen Awards honour comes just as the Festival is set to launch its next series of HD films, beginning with the premiere of The Taming of the Shrew in Cineplex theatres nationwide this Saturday. There is an encore showing on March 17.
Hamlet will premiere in April and The Adventures of Pericles in May. Love's Labour Lost, Hamlet and Macbeth will be filmed this year.
“I think all theatres are going here and right now we are the leaders in North America and one of the leaders in the world,” Cimolino said. “I don't think in this digital age we can be without this. It's part of the marketing tools, the educational tools to take Stratford to that next level.”
Theatres in the region that will be showing the Stratford Festival HD films include Galaxy Cinemas Waterloo, Silver City London and Galaxy Cinemas Guelph.
Visit www.stratfordfestival.ca/HD for more information.
King Lear also received Canadian Screen Award nominations for best leading actor (Colm Feore) and makeup (Gerald Altenburg and Sue Upton).
King John was also nominated for best performing arts program alongside King Lear. It also received nominations for best leading actress (Seana McKenna), best leading actor (Tom McCamus) and costume design (Carolyn M. Smith).
Antony and Cleopatra was nominated for best leading actress (Yanna McIntosh) and best leading actor (Geraint Wyn Davies).
By Steve Rice for www.stratfordbeaconherald.com.
*It should be noted that there were only two nominees in this category – King Lear and King John. [The Editor]
Photo: Colm Feore as King Lear. ©2014 David Hou.
2016-03-10
Stratford: The Stratford Festival HD series gets one win out of nine noms at the Canadian Screen Awards