Next year marks Canada’s 150th anniversary – and the Stratford Festival is using that as a reason to examine the concept of identity, Canadian and otherwise.
The festival’s 2017 lineup will feature two newly commissioned Canadian plays, as well as three Shakespearian tales and a number of other theatrical favourites.
“The 14 productions I’ve selected for 2017 will explore the many questions of identity – how do we prepare our face to the world, deal with our hidden desires or balance our self interests with the environment around us,” artistic director Antoni Cimolino said in a press release.
Shakespeare plays to be performed in Stratford next year include Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night and Timon of Athens.
Two musicals are also on the schedule – Guys and Dolls and HMS Pinafore.
Among the other titles on the playbill are the ancient Greek tragedy Bakkhai, Jacobean tragedy The Changeling and 18th-century comedy The School for Scandal – the latter of which will be directed by Cimolino himself.
The lineup was unveiled Wednesday, along with details of the two new Canadian plays commissioned by the festival.
They include The Breathing Hole, written by Colleen Murphy, which tells the story of Canada’s 500-year history through the eyes of a polar bear, as well as Kate Hennig’s The Virgil Trial, a companion to 2015’s Tudor thriller The Last Wife.
Tickets for the festival’s 2017 season will go on sale in November for festival members, and January for the general public.
