This is a landmark season for the Ontario-based Stratford Festival.
The internationally known theater festival, an easy 3-hour drive from Lansing, is one of the largest and most prestigious theater festivals in North America.
This year, the long-time artistic director of the festival, Antoni Cimolino, will be stepping down after being with the organization for 37 years.
During that time, he has starred in “Romeo and Juliet,” worked in the marking department, served as executive director, general director and, finally, artistic director. In that role he directs two shows per year.
The Stratford Festival started in April and runs through October, but it is a 12-month operation.
“During the summer we have 1200 employees — wig makers, prop makers, stagehands, musicians — with four theaters,” Cimolino said. “It’s a huge undertaking.”
Founded in 1952, Stratford’s first play was Shakespeare’s “Richard III” produced in a tent with Alec Guiness in the lead role.
Back then the official name was the Stratford Shakespeare Festival of Canada. Now, it’s simply Stratford Festival, because the 12 plays it mounts each year include comedies, musicals, dramas, world premieres, classics and children’s shows. Classical theater will always be the foundation of the festival, but the offerings include theater of every genre.
Although Cimolino finds his duties in administration and operations rewarding, he says, “it comes with all sorts of worries, headaches and annoyances. The only time that I am really focused and happy is when I’m directing. Being in a rehearsal hall is always bright and joy. It reminds one why we’re doing this.”
Through the years, Cimolino has seen many changes at the festival.
“The use of lights and sound has made revolutionary changes,” he said. “Now all the lights move automatically and are LEDs. When I started in theater, we used reel-to-reel tape for music. We recorded everything on tape. It took forever to record and edit. Now with digital, it’s an amazing difference.”
For many years, Stratford was putting on plays in an old, and oddly shaped, community building owned by the city. During the pandemic, the festival purchased the building and raised $100 million to build a new astonishing building, The Tom Patterson Theatre, that won several architectural awards. Cimolino marks the designing and building of that theater as his crowning achievement of his sparkling career.
And then there are the changes during Cimolino’s career that have not been as good.
“Shakespeare today is taught a lot less in schools,” Cimolino said. “We are still greeting 60-70,000 students per year to see Shakespeare, but I’m worried about the future.”
Cimolino loves watching the kids when they visit Stratford.
“You never have to explain theater to a young person, because they’re acting in situations with their friends since they were 4 years old,” he said. “They get it. They’re hard-wired to understand it.”
“Shakespeare is best on its feet – rather than reading it,” Cimolino said. “You want to have a teacher who doesn’t simply make you memorize a soliloquy but puts you up on your feet to do a scene with another student. That’s where the fun is! When they start really going at it like that, it gives me great hope.”
For Cimolino’s final season at Stratford, one of the plays he has chosen to direct is Shakespeare’s last play, “The Tempest.” It’s the story of an old man contemplating the meaning of life and of family.
Does the director of classical theater ever get tired of directing the same plays over and over again?
“Shakespeare, every time you come back to these plays you discover new things,” Cimolino said. “There’s no ‘been there, done that’ quality to it. You always surprise yourself by what’s in the play that you haven’t seen before.”
The protagonist of “The Tempest” is Prospero, usually played as a very old man on the verge of death. But Cimolino points out that he could not be all that old. He has a daughter who is only 15 years old, placing his age to be something like 45. Indeed, he found yet another way of looking at one of the greatest plays ever written.
Recently, Stratford had 200 students to see previews of the show.
“They were enwrapped,” Cimolino said. “They were totally watching and connected. Shakespeare is human, painful and wonderful.”
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IF YOU GO
2026 Season at Stratford Festival
“The Tempest” by William Shakespeare
“Guys and Dolls” (musical) by Frank Lesser, Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows
“Something Rotten!” (musical) by Karey Kirkpatrick, Wayne Kirkpatrick and John O’Farrell
“Waiting For Godot” by Samuel Beckett
“Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller
“The Hobbit” based on the book by J.R.R. Tolkien, adapted by Kim Selody
“Saturday, Sunday, Monday” by Eduardo De Filippo
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by William Shaskespeare
“Othello” by William Shakespeare
“The Tao of the World” by Jovanni Sy (world premiere)
“The King James Bible” by Charles Corbell-Coleman (world premiere)
For tickets and information, go to stratfordfestival.ca or call 1-800-567-1600.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Sterling Stratford: Internationally known Ontario theater festival still thriving
Reporting by Ken Glickman, For the Lansing State Journal / Lansing State Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
