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29-567: The impetus that resulted in the creation of Magnetic North Theatre Festival grew out of experiences Marti Maraden had travelling across Canada in her role as artistic director of the National Arts Centre ("NAC"). Through relationships Maraden built early in her tenure, the NAC contemplated the creation of a national theatre festival. During a theatre conference in 2002, NAC staff discovered that other theatre professionals were considering

58-524: A series of paintings depicting the costumes from festival costume warehouse, having served as their Head of Scenic Art from 2007 to 2015. In March 2020, as preparations for the upcoming season were underway, the Festival was forced to announce performance cancellations and layoffs due to the COVID-19 pandemic . A month later, the entire 2020 season was put on hold and effectively cancelled. Just before

87-795: A Canadian actor and director. Born in El Centro, California , she immigrated to Canada in 1968, and became a leading actor at the Stratford Festival in the 1970s. Maraden was artistic director of the National Arts Centre English Theatre in Ottawa from 1997 to 2006. While in this position, and arising from her activities in that role, the National Arts Centre co-founded the Magnetic North Theatre Festival . In 2006 Maraden

116-477: A classic Greek amphitheatre and Shakespeare's Globe Theatre . It has since become a model for other stages in North America and Great Britain. Tony Award -nominee Scott Wentworth has performed in the festival's stage productions on numerous occasions since 1985, beginning with The Glass Menagerie ; the festival has helped Sara Topham launch her career in acting, performing from 2000 to 2011; and

145-570: A disastrous loss of employment with the imminent elimination of steam power. Patterson achieved his goal after gaining encouragement from Mayor David Simpson and the local council, and the Stratford Shakespearean Festival became a legal entity on October 31, 1952. Already established in Canadian theatre, Dora Mavor Moore helped put Patterson in touch with British actor and director Tyrone Guthrie , first with

174-1822: A significant increase in the number of new patrons to the theatres. On 17 February 2015, AP News reported that the Stratford Shakespeare Festival plans to film all of Shakespeare's plays . Actors who have participated in the festival include Alan Bates , Brian Bedford , Domini Blythe , Barbara Bryne , Martha Burns , Jackie Burroughs , Zoe Caldwell , Douglas Campbell , Len Cariou , Brent Carver , Patricia Conolly , Susan Coyne , Jack Creley , Jonathan Crombie , Hume Cronyn , Henry Czerny , Cynthia Dale , Brian Dennehy , Colm Feore , Megan Follows , Maureen Forrester , Lorne Greene , Dawn Greenhalgh, Paul Gross , Alec Guinness , Amelia Hall, Uta Hagen , Julie Harris , Don Harron , Martha Henry , William Hutt , Frances Hyland , Charmion King , Andrea Martin , Barbara March , James Mason , Roberta Maxwell , Eric McCormack , Seana McKenna , Loreena McKennitt , Richard Monette , John Neville , Stephen Ouimette , Lucy Peacock , Nicholas Pennell , David J. Phillips , Amanda Plummer , Christopher Plummer , Sarah Polley , Douglas Rain , Kate Reid , Jason Robards , Alan Scarfe , Paul Scofield , Goldie Semple , William Shatner , Maggie Smith , Jessica Tandy , Peter Ustinov , Christopher Walken , Al Waxman , Irene Worth , Geraint Wyn Davies and Janet Wright . Female directors at Stratford have included Pam Brighton, Zoe Caldwell , Marigold Charlseworth, Donna Feore , Jill Keiley, Pamela Hawthorne, Martha Henry , Jeannette Lambermont, Diana Leblanc , Marti Maraden , Weyni Mengesha , Carey Perloff , Lorraine Pintal , Vanessa Porteous, Susan H. Schulman , Djanet Sears , Kathryn Shaw , Jennifer Tarver. From 1956 to 1961 and 1971 to 1976,

203-419: A transatlantic telephone call. On July 13, 1953, actor Alec Guinness spoke the first lines of the first play produced by the festival, a production of Richard III : "Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this son of York." Guinness and Irene Worth were among the cast of Stratford's inaugural performance of Richard III , working for expenses only. This first performances (like

232-548: A young, unknown Christopher Walken appeared in Stratford's 1968 stage productions of Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream , portraying Romeo and Lysander respectively. Long-serving Artistic Director Richard Monette retired in 2007 after holding the position for fourteen seasons. He was replaced with an artistic team consisting of General Director Antoni Cimolino and Artistic Directors Marti Maraden , Des McAnuff , and Don Shipley . On March 12, 2008, it

261-557: The Stratford Shakespeare Festival . The festival was one of the first arts festivals in Canada and continues to be one of its most prominent. It is recognized worldwide for its productions of Shakespearean plays. The festival's primary focus is to present productions of William Shakespeare 's plays, but it has a range of theatre productions from Greek tragedy to Broadway musicals and contemporary works. In

290-734: The Festival Theatre, the Avon Theatre, the Tom Patterson Theatre, and the Studio Theatre. Although the Festival's primary mandate is to produce the works of Shakespeare, its season playbills include contemporary works and at least one musical, as well as the classic repertory. The Stratford Festival Forum runs during the season, and features music concerts, readings from major authors, lectures, and discussions with actors or management. The Stratford Festival

319-471: The NAC. Mary Vingoe was appointed as the festival's first artistic director. Barbara Howatt was Magnetic North's first Executive Director. The society's mandate was to produce and promote contemporary English language theatre in Canada of high artistic standards of a national scope. Promoted as "Canada's National Festival of Contemporary Canadian Theatre in English", the first Magnetic North Theatre Festival

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348-547: The Shrew . Young actors during the first four seasons included several who went on to great success in subsequent years, Douglas Campbell , Timothy Findley , Don Harron , William Hutt and Douglas Rain . Fundraising to build a permanent theatre was slow but was helped significantly by donations from Governor General Vincent Massey and the Perth Mutual Insurance Company. The new Festival Theatre

377-684: The Stratford Festival also staged the separate Stratford Film Festival , which was credited as one of the first North American film festivals ever to schedule international films. That festival collapsed after the 1976 launch of the Festival of Festivals, now known as the Toronto International Film Festival , impacted both the Stratford Film Festival's funding and its audience. In 2011, the visual artist, Chris Klein , started producing

406-583: The early years of the festival, Shakespeare's works typically represented approximately one third of the offerings in the largest venue, the Festival Theatre . More recently, however, the festival's focus has shifted to encompass works by a more diverse range of playwrights. The success of the festival changed Stratford into a city where arts and tourism play important roles in the economy. The festival attracts many tourists from outside Canada, most notably British and American visitors. The Festival

435-557: The entire first four seasons) took place in a concrete amphitheatre covered by giant canvas tent on the banks of the River Avon. The first of many years of Stratford Shakespeare Festival production history started with a six-week season opening on 13 July 1953 with Richard III and then All's Well That Ends Well , both starring Alec Guinness. The 1954 season ran for nine weeks and included Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex and two Shakespeare plays, Measure for Measure and The Taming of

464-489: The festival by establishing a new board of directors for the organization and developing a plan to retire its debt. The organizers intended to relaunch the festival in 2019. Alternating with Ottawa every second year, the Magnetic North Theatre Festival was held in the following cities: Marti Maraden Marti Kathleen Maraden ( née Frederickson ; June 22, 1945 – August 31, 2023) was

493-411: The new Stratfest@Home web streaming service. In April 2021, the Festival announced a season of plays and cabarets, with most productions being held under large canopies at the Festival and Tom Patterson Theatres. Only one late-opening production was held indoors at the Studio Theatre with reduced capacity. The theme for the 2021 season was metamorphosis. In May of 2022, the Festival officially opened

522-478: The rebuilt Tom Patterson Theatre . Designed by Toronto-based architect, Siamak Hariri , the building overlooks the Avon river and sits on the site of the previous Tom Patterson space. The project cost an estimated 100 million dollars (CAD) and was funded by private donations with support from both provincial and federal governments. The Festival traditionally runs from April to October, and has four permanent venues:

551-497: The same idea, resulting in a movement to organize such an annual festival. As the national theatre community had little desire for such a festival to be "owned" by the NAC or entrenched in Ottawa, organizers settled on having the location of the festival alternating with Ottawa. In 2002, the Canadian Theatre Festival Society was incorporated for the purpose of operating the festival in partnership with

580-556: The season's cancellation, Cimolino announced that all productions that had been filmed as part of the Stratford Festival On Film series would be streamed online for free, with a different production being shown each week. Throughout the summer of 2020, the Festival produced four web series which, along with all the filmed productions and other Stratford documentaries and interviews, were launched in October 2020 on

609-846: The theatre, like networking and community-building activities. The festival was instrumental in raising the profile of Canadian touring artists and companies, many of whom secured regular national and international touring thanks to their participation in Magnetic North. Some of these notable companies and artists who were Magnetic North mainstays included Theatre Replacement, Electric Company Theatre, Neworld Theatre (Vancouver), Catalyst Theatre (Edmonton), One Yellow Rabbit (Calgary), Crow's Theatre, Mammalian Diving Reflex (Toronto), Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland (St John's) and Zuppa (Halifax). Sherrie Johnson, Sarah Garton Stanley, and Ann-Marie Kerr provided leadership as Industry Series Producer and Encounters Series Curators. Total festival attendance in 2007

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638-584: Was 78. This article about a Canadian actor is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Stratford Festival The Stratford Festival is a theatre festival which runs from April to October in the city of Stratford, Ontario , Canada. Founded by local journalist Tom Patterson in 1952, the festival was formerly known as the Stratford Shakespearean Festival , the Shakespeare Festival and

667-447: Was Brendan Healy, who was named to the position in 2016. On March 22, 2017, the Magnetic North Theatre Festival announced that it would be cancelling its upcoming 2017 season and would be permanently cancelling the festival. The festival stated that due to the festival's accumulated debt, continued operations of the festival would be untenable. However, on September 15, 2017, a group of artists and administrators stepped forward to revive

696-471: Was announced that Shipley and Maraden would be stepping down, leaving Des McAnuff as sole Artistic Director. In 2013, Des McAnuff was replaced by Antoni Cimolino as Artistic Director. In 2012, the Festival had a deficit of $ 3.4 million, but by 2015 had a surplus of $ 3.1 million under the control of Cimolino and executive director Anita Gaffney. The target of a half million ticket sales for the season (a previous record) had not yet been reached, but had achieved

725-741: Was appointed to succeed Richard Monette as an artistic director of the Stratford Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford, Ontario . Unlike previous artistic directors at Stratford, Maraden was a member of a three-person artistic team, which included co-directors Des McAnuff and Don Shipley until creative differences forced the three to end their working relationship. Directed the play Rexy at Neptune Theatre 2015. Maraden died of organ failure following emergency surgery on August 31, 2023, while visiting family in Uppsala, Sweden. She

754-489: Was dedicated on 30 June 1957, with seating for over 1,800 people; no seats are more than 65 feet from the stage. The design was deliberately intended to resemble a huge tent. That season's productions included Hamlet , Twelfth Night , the satirical My Fur Lady , The Turn of the Screw and Ibsen's Peer Gynt . The Festival Theatre's thrust stage was designed by British designer Tanya Moiseiwitsch to resemble both

783-404: Was founded as the Stratford Shakespearean Festival of Canada , by Tom Patterson, a Stratford-native journalist who wanted to revitalize his town's economy by creating a theatre festival dedicated to the works of William Shakespeare , as the town shares the name of Shakespeare's birthplace, Stratford-upon-Avon, England . Stratford was a railway junction and major locomotive shop, and was facing

812-419: Was held in Ottawa in 2003. In addition to a presenting a slate of theatrical performances, the festival held lectures, workshops, symposia, discussion panels, and opportunities to meet the performers of the various productions as well as prominent members of the Canadian theatrical community. In addition to targeting the general public, the festival's offerings included events catering to working professionals in

841-689: Was over 9,000. In 2008, the festival featured 53 performances, involving 10 works in the main program at eight venues, as well as the "Magnetic Encounters" artist talk series and the industry networking event, bringing the total number of public events to over 80. Ken Cameron succeeded Vingoe as artistic director in 2007 and served in that position until 2010. Ann Connors was the Executive Director. They were supported by Naomi Campbell, Industry series producer and Kris Nelson, Encounters Series Curator. After Ken, then Ann's sole tenure as CEO, Brenda Leadlay took over. The festival's final artistic director

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