Stratford Festival
Stratford, Ontario
Multiple venues
Now through October
For Detroit theater lovers, heading to Canada (America done right!) for the Stratford Festival is a rite of passage … at least in your middle school or high school days.
That’s all I hear when I mention that I’m heading out that way, to escape inside the dark of a theatre for a few days in this idyllic Canadian town that transformed itself in the 1950s into a hub for Broadway-caliber stage shows, starting with Shakespeare for a six-week run before becoming a full spring-through-autumn operation and a major cultural attraction for the country.
A lot of people, however, haven’t made the pilgrimage in quite some time. That’s a shame.
Heading out this way is about the theatre, yes, but it’s also about experiencing a town that’s embraced that arts so wholly that the fabric of the town emanates with it.
I’m dreaming of a day when Detroit manages to do the same. I consider this a cultural research trip if anything, or maybe just a fever dream where I’m frantically scribbling down my wish list for my own city by visiting here. Can you imagine walking down the Detroit Riverfront and stopping in for a show at a state-of-the-art theatre like the Tom Patterson Theatre in Stratford? I can.
Speaking of the shows themselves, this season Stratford boasts plenty of Shakespeare, including “Othello,” “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “The Tempest,” directed by outgoing Stratford artistic director Antoni Cimolino. There’s also the classic “Death of a Salesman” and the darkly comedic “Waiting for Godot,” if you’re looking for more serious fare.
But you don’t have to be the serious type. In fact, I intentionally went light this year, looking for fun farces like Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest,” staged at the Avon Theatre just across the street from Stratford’s main town square (often filled with farmer’s markets and other fests on the weekends throughout the spring and summer).
I had the best time at “Guys and Dolls,” long considered a top standard of Broadway that originally premiered all the way back in 1950, ran for over 1,200 shows, snatched a Tony for best musical and will be produced until the end of time. So, if you’re going to do “Guys and Dolls” at the Stratford level, it better bang! And it certainly did, with stellar performances from Dan Chameroy as the slick oddball “Sky Masterson” and Mark Uhre as a particularly convincing “Nathan Detroit.” Plus — all the neon lights and stage setting anyone would expect from a busy, city street set story like this.
There’s a lot of shows worth your time in Stratford; a great excuse to dust off the high school memories and head from Detroit to Canada for the first time in a while. But there’s a larger vision to enjoy here as you walk around town, experiencing a city that has dedicated itself to the arts and reaped the benefits over the decades. If only more American cities could take note and break a leg.
