Stratford Festival

The Stratford Festival’s critically acclaimed performance of King Lear. An aging monarch resolves to divide his kingdom among his three daughters, with consequences he little expects. His reason shattered in the storm of violent emotion that ensues, with his very life hanging in the balance, Lear loses everything that has defined him as a king – and thereby discovers the essence of his own humanity.

Blinded by jealousy, King Leontes falsely accuses his pregnant wife of infidelity, setting into motion a series of catastrophes that will destroy his wife and son and leave his infant daughter abandoned to the elements on a distant island. Sixteen years later, the king receives an unlikely chance at redemption.

Young lovers Hero and Claudio, soon to wed, conspire to get verbal sparring partners and confirmed singles Benedick and Beatrice to wed as well.

A scholarly king and his three companions swear off the society of women for three years, only to have a diplomatic visit from a French princess and her three ladies-in-waiting thwart their intentions.

Rodger & Hart's Shakespearean musical put on by the Stratford Festival in their first musical endeavor.

Renowned for his extreme generosity, the Athenian nobleman Timon has fallen prey to flatterers and false friends, on whom he showers lavish gifts and extravagant hospitality. His loyal steward, Flavius, tries to warn him of the financial consequences of such reckless expenditure, while the cynical philosopher Apemantus mocks his naivety, but Timon ignores them both. When his money runs out and his creditors demand payment, Timon sends confidently to his "friends" for help. When all refuse him, he throws one last party - one that heralds a dramatic change in his attitude to the world.

This scintillating production of Shakespeare’s boisterous comedy will stir your emotions even as it challenges you with its pointed social commentary. Is the story of Kate and Petruchio one of courtship or of conquest? The breaking down of a defiant spirit or a breakthrough that liberates a heart deprived of love? You decide – but either way, this is an experience not to be missed!

In Kenya in 1952, Mercy, a restaurant proprietor, is hired to cater the impending visit of Princess Elizabeth, soon to be Queen. In 2015, another story unfolds in London, England, where a young Kenyan-born Canadian, Tia, is working as an intern on a TV drama series about the British royal family – while also pursuing a writing project of her own. These parallel narratives seem only coincidentally connected – until a surprising twist reveals a deeper relationship between the two.

Pursuing two respectably married women at the same time, a would-be seducer fails to anticipate that his targets will, quite literally, compare notes. Nor has he reckoned on the mischievous spirit in which the wives will use their wits and wiles to teach him the error of his ways. Set in the 1950s, in a town not unlike Stratford, Ontario, this production brings Shakespeare's rollicking comedy close to home - and close to our hearts.

When the King of France demands that John relinquish his crown in favor of his nephew, the young Prince Arthur, war is the inevitable result. Excommunication, attempted atrocity, rebellion, and assassination all contribute to political turmoil and personal grief for a mother who has lost her son.

Exiled Prospero lives on a desolate island with his daughter, Miranda. When Prospero's usurping brother sails by the island, Prospero conjures a storm that wrecks the ship and changes all of their lives.

As a young child, Frederic had been apprenticed to a pirate by mistake when he should have been apprenticed to a pilot. Now, having reached his 21st year, Frederic's indentures are at last over and he happily leaves the service of the pirates. When Frederic meets the beautiful Mabel, one of the many daughters (or wards in Chancery) of Major-General Stanley, they fall in love and decide to marry. However, complications arise when the pirates decide to marry the rest of the Major-General's daughters, themselves - and Frederic's birthdate turns out to be not all it seems. Filmed live from the 1985 Stratford Festival in Ontario.

This radically reimagined version of Shakespeare's romantic tragedy Romeo and Juliet invites you into an up-to-the-minute world of sound and music, a world in which the entrenched hostilities of an older generation are challenged by the passions of young people who only want to love.

Stratford Festival's production of Romeo and Juliet 1993. Megan Porter Follows (Anne of Green Gables) and Antoni Cimolino (Stratford Festival Artistic Director) star in one of the most famous love stories of all time. The tale unfolds as the families of the star-crossed lovers, the Montagues and the Capulets, are embroiled in a bitter feud that erupts into a brawl. The couple plan a secret wedding, but fate intervenes and the two die tragically, precipitating a vow by the bereaved fathers to resolve their differences.

Shakespeare's great comedy of dreaming and desire has it all - spellbound lovers, quarrelling fairies, tradesmen who love amateur theatricals. This is both a deep dive into the realms of the subconscious and a hilarious tribute to the power of the imagination. The most fundamental techniques of theatrical art feature in a magically inventive staging of a play that is itself a celebration of joy, both human and supernatural.

The swaggering Petruchio agrees to marry the spitting hellcat, Katherine.

Staged at the Stratford Festival and named on many 2018 year-end critics “best of” lists, the Stratford Festival’s “riveting” and “exhilarating” (The New York Times) production of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, has been called “the show of the decade… a landmark production for the Stratford Festival. Maybe for William Shakespeare, too” (The Globe and Mail), and “the greatest contemporary staging of this play that I have ever seen” (Chicago Tribune).

When Helen cures the King of France of an ailment that has confounded every other doctor, he grants her lifetime wish: the marital hand of the aristocratic courtier Bertram. However, Bertram proves a reluctant husband and immediately heads off to war, leaving Helen with a seemingly impossible riddle to solve in order to seal their marriage.

A long-simmering animosity between two families of Verona, the Montague's and the Capulet's, has recently boiled over, with members of the rival households brawling in the streets. One night, Romeo, a Montague, crashes a party given by the Capulet's in order to meet up with a young woman called Rosaline, with whom he is infatuated. Thoughts of her vanish from his mind, however, when he catches sight of Juliet, daughter of the head of the Capulet household. Juliet is equally smitten with Romeo, but her father already has other plans for her.

The swaggering Petruchio agrees to marry the spitting hellcat, Katherine.