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no curtain, no elaborate scenery or
complicated scene changes that
slowed the action. Instead, he chose
continuous action, on a multi-level
thrust stage that brought the players
close to the audience. This was the
stage that Tanya Moiseiwitsch
designed for the inaugural festival in
1953. In that first six-week season, the
theatre was a massive canvas tent. By
1957, when the original Festival
Theatre was built, bricks and mortar
surrounded the thrust stage. Today,
more than half a century since the festival
was founded, the
Moiseiwitsch/Guthrie concept has
been modified (resulting in some controversy)
and the massive theatre is an
elaborate structure with more than
2,000 seats, but the thrust stage has
endured.The Festival,like its signature
stage, has suffered through controversy,
regime changes and disputes. It,
too, has endured to become a major
Canadian icon of the arts.
Now indisputably the most
important Shakespearean theatre in
North America, seasons run for more
than half the year and budgets regularly
top $50 million annually, with 58
per cent of that figure recovered
through ticket sales and the rest
sought through grants and donations.
Today, there are four theatres, a training
school for actors, theatre stores, a
long list of peripheral events and
much of the local economy is built
around the upscale tourist industry
generated by the Stratford Festival.
Although ticket prices, as well as
restaurant and travel costs have risen
sharply of late, a trip to Stratford need
not break the bank for the careful theatre
traveller and thrifty theatre
patron.
For instance, if one of a couple of
visitors is over 60, the pair can take
advantage of VIA Rail’s two-for-one
offer and travel by train at half the regular
cost. Simple maneuvers such as
seeing more than one show a day
(there are matinee performances as
well as evening shows most days) can
reduce the number of nights in a
hotel, motel or bed and breakfast. In
addition, accommodation is offered in
a variety of prices, with an average of
History of the Festival
Stratford native Harry Thomas
Patterson (1920 to 2005) first
dreamed of having a Shakespearean
festival in his hometown when he
was still in high school.
In 1951,the Second World War
veteran, now a journalist, began
soliciting support for his idea. He
obtained a small grant of $125
from the Stratford City Council
(for a fare to New York) to
research the concept of an outdoor
festival and, with the help of
a volunteer committee, to seek a
star to lead the embryonic theatrical
event.
The celebrated British director
Tyrone Guthrie (1900 to 1971)
agreed to bring the works of
William Shakespeare to the economically
challenged town 177
kilometres west of Toronto.
Tyrone Guthrie insisted on
having a thrust stage to bring the
plays closer to the audience and
called for performances to be protected
from the elements. English
designer Tanya Moiseiwitsch (1914
to 2003) designed the stage.
Canadian architect Robert Fairfield
designed the giant tent that
housed the first festival and Roy
Manley of the Ringling Brothers
Circus raised the festival’s first
home in Stratford in 1953.
The first show opened on July
13, 1953, for a six-week season of
Richard III and All’s Well That
September 2008 • 29 • Fifty-Five Plus Magazine
Ends Well with Alec Guinness and
Irene Worth as the leading performers.
Despite being plagued by
financial difficulties, the Stratford
Festival grew steadily. Musical
programs were added in
1955.The tent was replaced with
a three-million dollar, bricks-andmortar
building — the Festival
Theatre, designed by Robert
Fairfield — in 1957, confirming
that the Stratford Festival was a
permanent addition to the
Canadian cultural scene. The
Moiseiwitsch stage remained the
signature performing space.
Enhanced by the star power
of such actors as Brian Bedford,
Christopher Plummer, Maggie
Smith and Peter Ustinov, as well as
such homegrown stars as Cynithia
Dale and William Hutt, the stature
of the Stratford Festival has
reached massive proportions
across the continent.
The festival now runs well
into November, occupies four theatres,
and has an extensive program
of discussions, concerts and
other fringe and educational activities,
including an actors’ conservatory.The
festival is now not only
Stratford’s major asset and tourist
attraction but also Canada’s
largest non-profit arts organization
with more than 1,000
employees and an annual budget
of over $52 million.
PHOTO: STRATFORD SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL