Stratford Studio

Performing Arts & Entertainment in Canada, Autumn, 2001

Not to be outdone by the National Arts Centre, which recently expanded its performance facilities from three to four, the Stratford Festival has announced the opening of a new 250-seat Studio Theatre in time for the 2002 summer season, which will be the festival's 50th anniversary. Set to house premieres, experiments and oddities, the new space is the festival's first addition since 1971.

It will be inaugurated on July 13, 2002 with a production of Niccolo Machiavelli's The Mandrake. Later in the season it will house productions of Shakespeare's The Two Noble Kinsmen and The Death of Cupid by contemporary Canadian playwright Peter Hinton, as well as one-act plays by Canadians Timothy Findlay, Paul Dunn, Anton Piatigorsky, Celia McBride and Ian Ross, plus work by Jean Cocteau, Jean-Paul Sartre and filmmaker Federico Fellini. Workshop productions of plays in development will round out the season. The 50th anniversary will also be marked by a series of special festivities, including the release of a documentary by the National Film Board, a thirteen-part CBC interview series, a commemorative book entitled Fifty Seasons at Stratford and a reunion on the July 13 weekend (the date the festival first opened its doors).