Stage Door News
Stage Door News
Executive Director Anita Gaffney is pleased to announce that the Stratford Festival’s HD productions are now available on demand.
The first three titles captured for this project, King Lear, King John and Antony and Cleopatra, can now be downloaded through iTunes in Canada and the U.S.; Amazon Instant Video in the U.S. and the U.K.; and Google Play in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. Details can be found at www.stratfordfestival.ca/OnDemand.
“We are thrilled to enter this next phase of Stratford Festival HD,” said Ms Gaffney. “In 2014 we embarked upon this ambitious plan to film all of Shakespeare’s plays over 10 years. Since that time our films have been seen by more than 200,000 people, and now we hope to extend our reach even further with this latest development.”
King Lear
A kingdom divided, a family destroyed, the faithful banished and the hateful left to wreak inhuman havoc in the realm. Four hundred years after it was written, King Lear resonates as never before. This powerful and unforgettable production by North America’s leading classical theatre company stars the incomparable Colm Feore in the role of a lifetime, directed by the Stratford Festival’s acclaimed Artistic Director Antoni Cimolino.
King John
When the rule of a hedonistic and mercurial king is questioned, rebellion, assassination and excommunication ensue, culminating in the chilling attempt to commit an atrocity against a child, whose mother’s anguished grief cannot atone for her blinkered ambitions for her son.
This rarely produced Shakespeare play features commanding performances by Tom McCamus, Seana McKenna, Graham Abbey and Patricia Collins and is directed by Tim Carroll, whose recent productions of Richard III and Twelfth Night were the toast of Broadway.
Antony and Cleopatra
The steamy story of a midlife affair that shook the foundations of the ancient world comes to vivid life in the Stratford Festival production of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, starring Geraint Wyn Davies and Yanna McIntosh as the powerful rulers whose insatiable love leads to the greatest of tragedies. Director Gary Griffin paints an unforgettable landscape depicting the devastation wrought by the heart’s transgressions.
The Stratford Festival HD initiative began in 2014 and the catalogue now includes King Lear, King John, Antony and Cleopatra, Hamlet, The Taming of the Shrew and The Adventures of Pericles.
Hamlet, The Taming of the Shrew and The Adventures of Pericles will be added to the on-demand offerings next year.
All six films have been screened at Cineplex theatres across Canada and at cinemas throughout the U.S., the U.K. and internationally. Canada’s national broadcaster has aired the first three titles on CBC-TV and will present the latest three beginning this summer.
Stratford Festival HD is sponsored by Sun Life Financial as part of their Making the Arts More Accessible™ program. Support for Stratford Festival HD is generously provided by Laura Dinner & Richard Rooney, the Jenkins Family Foundation, the Henry White Kinnear Foundation, Ophelia & Mike Lazaridis, The Catherine and Maxwell Meighen Foundation, Sandra & Jim Pitblado, the Slaight Family Foundation, Robert & Jacqueline Sperandio, and an anonymous donor. The Festival also acknowledges the generous support of the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario.
Photo: Colm Feore as King Lear. ©2013 Don Dixon.
2016-07-05
Stratford: Stratford Festival HD films now available on demand