Christopher Plummer will be back! More Shakespeare Productions!

HAMLET! ROMEO & JULIET! and MOBY DICK, and a little CABARET!

Get your first peak at the 2008 Stratford Festival of Canada Season.

The Stratford Festival Of Canada’s 2008 Season Announced….

The Stratford Festival, the leading classical repertory theatre in North America, is restoring Shakespeare to its name to reflect its commitment to the work of the world’s greatest playwright. Starting in November, it will be known as the Stratford Shakespeare Festival.

“Shakespeare is central to what we do,” says General Director Antoni Cimolino, “so we’re making his name central to ours.”

The move is the first for the new artistic team, led by Mr. Cimolino and Artistic Directors Marti Maraden, Des McAnuff and Don Shipley, who replace retiring Artistic Director Richard Monette at the end of the 2007 season. In addition to focusing on Shakespeare and the classics, the Festival will open itself to international influence and make the development of Canadian talent an essential part of its mandate.

“Much of the inspiration for the changes we have planned comes from who we are, from our DNA,” says Mr. Cimolino. “On July 13, 1953, that auspicious day, the Stratford Festival was an enormous surprise – it was an innovation. It was national; it was international. And it had Shakespeare at its core.”

In 2008, the Stratford Shakespeare Festival will showcase the brilliance of William Shakespeare, alongside exciting and relevant classics, musicals and world premières, presenting a playbill that includes Shakespeare’s Hamlet, The Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, All’s Well That Ends Well and Love’s Labour’s Lost, as well as Fuente Ovejuna, by Shakespeare’s Spanish contemporary Lope de Vega, and The Trojan Women by Euripides. The season will also include the Canadian première of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s Emilia Galotti, a classic German tale presented in a thoroughly modern interpretation by German director Michael Thalheimer, which has been heralded internationally.

“Stratford has a reputation as one of the finest classical acting companies in the world and we want to build on that by also including the work of visionaries from around the world,” says Mr. Shipley. “One of the people I’m most excited to have joining us in 2008 is Adrian Noble, one of the great directors.”

Mr. Noble, former artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company in London, England, will direct Hamlet on the Festival stage.

“Hamlet is without question the most influential play in the history of theatre,” says Mr. McAnuff. “Adrian Noble is absolutely the right director for this project. He brings years of experience and craft and wisdom to this production.”

Adds Ms Maraden: “Each director has a unique vision for telling a story and so it’s very exciting to bring directors in from other parts of the world, from other parts of Canada, to tell their versions of these great stories.”

At the helm of The Taming of the Shrew is Peter Hinton, the artistic director of English theatre for Canada’s National Arts Centre, in Ottawa.

“Peter Hinton has a distinguished history,” says Ms Maraden. “His productions exhibit an astonishing range of theatrical imagination and expertise, and we look forward to the fresh and innovative eye he will bring to The Taming of the Shrew on the Festival stage.”

The Taming of the Shrew is one of Shakespeare’s best known and most loved plays, but its premise makes it somewhat controversial in our times.

“Like The Merchant of Venice, The Taming of the Shrew is a difficult play,” says Mr. McAnuff. “We think it’s important to embrace these challenging plays because they have tremendous value. They are often the keenest instruments for unlocking the secrets of our times.”

Mr. McAnuff will be directing Romeo and Juliet and is thrilled to be presenting it on the Festival stage.

“This could be the greatest stage in the world for doing Elizabethan/Jacobean drama, so that’s a privilege in itself,” he says.

“Romeo and Juliet was a breakout play for Shakespeare, along with Love’s Labour’s Lost. These are plays that in Shakespeare’s day really proved him as a major dramatist – and as it turns out, perhaps the greatest genius of all time, certainly of dramatic literature. It’s a breathtakingly brilliant play, regrettably one that seems to become more and more pertinent with each passing decade. Just reading in the newspapers of the Palestinian conflict, one cannot help but think of Romeo and Juliet, in which the brothers of Verona turn on each other in such a hellish fashion,” says Mr. McAnuff.

“The play is also about the clash of generations, as is another Shakespeare on our playbill, All’s Well That Ends Well, which will be directed by Marti Maraden in what I think is a dream project for her.”

One of Shakespeare’s later plays, All’s Well That Ends Well will be presented at the Festival Theatre.

“All’s Well That Ends Well has that lovely quality of Shakespeare’s later work of being reflective of the human journey,” says Ms Maraden. “The play is described as a comedy – and it is; parts of it are brilliantly amusing! But it’s also a play with enormous heart and pathos.

“It is a play that balances age and wisdom with youth and inexperience, enormous courage with outrageous comic colour. It is a pilgrimage of the heart that ends in forgiveness and the hope of redemption, and which recognizes that in all of us.

“All’s Well That Ends Well was the first comedy to be presented in the Festival’s inaugural year and so it seems fitting to include it as we begin a new era.”

Ms Maraden will also direct The Trojan Women, at the Tom Patterson Theatre.

“This great play has never been done at Stratford,” says Ms Maraden. “It was one of the first plays I wrote down as I started to think about the 2008 season. The Trojan Women is a play for all time. It deals with the repercussions of war and its impact on women, children and men – the victims of war. Sadly, it remains eternally relevant.”

Also at the Tom Patterson will be Love’s Labour’s Lost.

“The great Michael Langham will come to direct what has become his signature play,” says Ms Maraden. “He will be working with members of the Festival’s Birmingham Conservatory for Classical Theatre Training, along with senior members of the company, in one of Shakespeare’s most beloved comedies, Love’s Labour’s Lost.”

Mr. Langham, Stratford’s artistic director from 1956 to 1967, brings decades of experience to his work with the young members of the Festival company. Together with the artistic directors and Martha Henry, the newly appointed director of the Conservatory, he will play a key role next season in the Festival’s development of talent, which is critical to the Festival’s future.

“Shakespeare stands front and centre, not just on the main stage but also with the young company,” says Mr. McAnuff. “Training in the classics is our lifeline. It’s essential that we put our energy into bringing forward a whole new generation of actors. We can’t stand around and expect others to do that job for us.”

Also of critical importance is that the Festival open itself to the nation and to the world.

“It’s important that Stratford be more present on the international stage,” says Mr. Cimolino. “We need to tour and also to welcome great artists here for the first time so that our theatre is not a surprise to them, so that it is known – and known well – internationally. We need to be able to present more seldom-produced classics – and make contributions toward the interpretation of those works. We also need to generate new work that is among the finest across the country, on a very regular basis.”

Mr. Shipley, highly respected for his international theatrical experience, is thrilled to introduce Canadian audiences to Emilia Galotti, a famous German tale told with a spectacular modern voice.

“This production of Emilia Galotti has achieved cult status around the world, touring to Dublin, New York and Tokyo. It’s one of the great German classics, given a vigorous contemporary interpretation by Michael Thalheimer, one of Berlin’s foremost theatre visionaries,” says Mr. Shipley.

The play will be performed in German with English surtitles, at the Avon Theatre. “But the piece is so visual that one will be able to get the story even without the surtitles,” Mr. Shipley says.

Another classic European tale, this one from Spain, will be presented in 2008: Fuente Ovejuna by Lope de Vega, who wrote during Shakespeare’s lifetime.

“Fuente Ovejuna is a major play from the Spanish Golden Age, one of the richest periods in all of dramatic literature,” says Mr. McAnuff. “We need to be doing the plays of Shakespeare’s contemporaries and the great playwrights from across the vast international classical repertoire. We shouldn’t be ignoring the two and a half centuries of drama between Shakespeare and Ibsen, which is often done.

“Fuente Ovejuna itself is a really pertinent play today. It is about people joining together to rebel against tyranny. It’s hard to imagine a more important theme in terms of the world we live in than that.”

British director Laurence Boswell will direct the production, which will be presented at the Tom Patterson Theatre.

“Laurence Boswell is one of the foremost directors in the world of Spanish literature,” says Mr. Shipley.

“His voice, together with the voices of the other directors working in Stratford in the coming season, is certain to invigorate the company and help to create thought-provoking, relevant theatre for our audiences. Reconnecting with the international artistic community is really important. It’s this kind of cross-pollination that will make us – and them – better,” he adds.

“It’s healthy to have new voices because they challenge and stimulate us. It’s important to question the kind of work you’re doing and to continue that investigation. That’s what a time of renewal allows you to do – look back at the past and embrace the future. And here at Stratford, we know we are building on a great foundation.”

NEWS RELEASE 2:

Christopher Plummer returns to the Stratford Festival 2008 season to feature Caesar and Cleopatra, Music Man and Cabaret

Aug., 21, 2007…With Shakespeare firmly established as the centrepiece of the 2008 playbill, the Stratford Festival of Canada now announces two vibrant musicals and a Shaw classic.

The season will feature The Music Man and Cabaret, and Christopher Plummer will return to the Festival stage to play Julius Caesar in Caesar and Cleopatra.

“Our goal for this Festival is to illuminate Shakespeare’s work and give audiences an exciting variety of theatrical experiences,” says general director Antoni Cimolino. “We’re very proud of the season we’re putting together and also delighted that Christopher Plummer will be joining us again.”

The Avon Theatre, which housed this summer’s hit My One and Only, will continue in the musical tradition with The Music Man and Cabaret.

“The Avon is the natural home for musicals with that lovely proscenium arch that allows for all kinds of fantastic scenery and visual effects,” says co-artistic director Marti Maraden. “And of course we will schedule the musicals so they can accommodate just as many people as they have in the past, when one musical was staged at the Festival Theatre and one at the Avon.”

The Music Man, one of the most successful and popular musicals ever written, will be directed by Susan H. Schulman, who directed To Kill a Mockingbird this season.

“Susan has an exceptional track record here at the Festival with Mockingbird and Fiddler on the Roof,” says co-artistic director Don Shipley. “She has also directed numerous musicals on Broadway, including The Secret Garden and revivals of The Sound of Music and Sweeney Todd. We’re very fortunate to have her returning to work with us again.”

Cabaret will be directed by Amanda Dehnert, who Mr. Shipley says is quickly becoming one of the leading forces in American musical theatre. She is a resident director at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, RI, where she has directed such shows as The Fantasticks, My Fair Lady and West Side Story.

“Amanda is part of the next generation of emerging young directors who are making a reputation for reinvigorating the genre. She is highly imaginative, bold and exciting – and we can expect her to bring a highly unorthodox approach in her treatment of Cabaret.”

Anika Noni Rose to play Cleopatra

Caesar and Cleopatra will be directed by co-artistic director Des McAnuff and will feature Christopher Plummer as Julius Caesar. Mr. Plummer’s leading lady will be Broadway and film sensation Anika Noni Rose. Ms Rose won the praise of New York theatre critics for her performance in the hit show Caroline or Change, for which she won a coveted Tony Award. She is also known worldwide for her portrayal of pop singer Lorrell Robinson in the movie Dreamgirls.

“Christopher Plummer is an international treasure,” says Mr. McAnuff. “He and Anika get on like a house on fire and I’m thrilled that they will be bringing their very impressive skill sets and depth of talent to these remarkable parts.”

The Stratford Festival has produced only two Shaw works in its history: Saint Joan, in 1975, and Arms and the Man, in 1982. “Caesar and Cleopatra is a play Christopher Plummer has wanted to do for some time and I fell in love with that idea,” says Mr. McAnuff. “I think it’s a terrific part for him.”

Mr. Plummer last appeared at the Stratford Festival in 2002 in a production of King Lear that went on to New York’s Lincoln Center. The 1996 season featured Mr. Plummer in Barrymore, which also went on to Broadway, where Mr. Plummer won a Tony Award for his performance.

Several new works are still in the planning stages for 2008 and will be announced as soon as details are confirmed.

The Stratford Festival box office will open to the general public on Dec. 1, 2007, a month earlier than usual. The American Express Front of the Line presale begins Nov. 10. Members of the Stratford Festival will be offered advance booking opportunities beginning Oct. 15.