My Town Monday: Side Trip to Stratford, Ontario to Shakespeare Festival

The Stratford Shakespeare Theater Festival began in 1952 in Stratford, Ontario. Tom Patterson, a local journalist, was looking for a way to revitalize his town after train service to the town was discontinued. The town’s name provided his inspiration. The first year’s half-dozen productions were performed in a tent but today the town has four venues that perform plays from May till November. Two of those theaters hold over 1000 people, the other two are more intimate.

2008 Season

• Hamlet - by William Shakespeare
• The Taming of the Shrew - by William Shakespeare
• Romeo and Juliet - by William Shakespeare
• All's Well That Ends Well - by William Shakespeare
• Love's Labour's Lost - by William Shakespeare
• The Music Man - by Meredith Willson
• Cabaret - book by Joe Masteroff, lyrics by Fred Ebb, music by John Kander
• Caesar and Cleopatra - by George Bernard Shaw
• Fuente Ovejuna - by Lope de Vega
• The Trojan Women - by Euripides
• Emilia Galotti - by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
• Palmer Park - by Joanna McClelland Glass
• Moby-Dick - by Morris Panych
• Krapp's Last Tape / Hughie - by Samuel Beckett / Eugene O'Neill
• Her Infinite Variety - by Peter Hinton
• There Reigns Love - by Simon Callow

The quality of the productions is first-rate and actors from both the U.S. and Canada regularly perform here.

Stratford has turned the town over to the success of this festival and has lectures, musical events, gardens, a lovely river, multi-media productions, museums and other events to compliment this festival. It is a 3 hour drive from Detroit. We usually see 1-2 productions a year. This year we saw The Music Man, which was absolutely outstanding.

The town of Stratford is charming as well. It has numerous top-notch accomodations to fit all budgets as well as fine restaurants and shops.

If you are within driving distance of Stratford, I highly recommend a trip. Check out more My Town Monday posts at Travis Erwin's blog:

http://traviserwin.blogspot.com/