The Stratford Festival's Festival Theatre is shown in Stratford, Ont., on May 28, 2018. It's set to reopen in June after missing all of last year's season. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Geoff Robins)

Returning to its roots, the Stratford Festival looks to reopen in June

It began under a tent back in 1953 and what is now called the Stratford Festival grew from there–into an enormously successful and world-famous destination for all those who love theatre.

But like so many other people and events and businesses in Canada, it did not have a good 2020.

It was forced to cancel last year’s season.

“The cancellation of our 2020 season will always leave an aching void in our hearts. But as we look ahead to welcoming you back this year, and to the new possibilities this brings, we feel a great affinity with our founders and their undaunted pioneering spirit,” the festival says on its official website.

“About a dozen” live productions are tentatively scheduled between late June and the end of September. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Geoff Robins)

But COVID-19 has a way of throwing more than a few things out of kilter.

So in 2021, the Stratford Festival returns to its roots.

This year’s season will be played outside.

For the first Stratford Shakespeare Festival in 1953, a circus tent was brought from Chicago and raised on a hillside. (© Peter Smith/Stratford Shakespeare Festival)

The plays and cabarets, The Canadian Press’s David Friend reports, will take place beneath two canopies, one at the Festival Theatre and the other at the new Tom Patterson Theatre.

Organizers have made tentative plans for “about a dozen” live productions held in-person between late June and the end of September.

The 2020 Stratford Festival was forced to cancel its 2020 season because of the COVID-19 pandemic. (CBC/Nigel Hunt)

Performing outdoors, they say, will allow them to seat up to 100 people in “socially distanced pods.” 

The festival’s executive director, Anita Ganney, told Friend this year’s season, which will be announced in the spring, will be designed so that it can be modified to either shrink or grow in size, depending on provincial and community health guidelines.

With files from The Canadian Press (David Friend)

 

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