|
Stratford Shakespeare Festival Production History
This page describes the production history of the Stratford Festival. The Stratford Festival (formerly known as the Stratford Shakespearean Festival, the Stratford Festival of Canada, and the Stratford Shakespeare Festival) is a summer-long celebration of theatre held each year in Stratford, Ontario. Theatre-goers, actors, and playwrights flock to Stratford to take part—many of the greatest Canadian, American and British actors have played roles at Stratford. It was one of the first and is still one of the most prominent arts festivals in Canada. The Festival's primary mandate is to present productions of Shakespeare's plays, but it also produces a wide variety of theatre from Greek tragedy to Gilbert and Sullivan to Broadway musicals to contemporary works. By 2017, only three of the 14 productions were based on Shakespeare's works. The following is a chronological list of the productions that have been staged as part of the Stratford Festival since its inception. On Februar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Festival Theatre, Stratford
A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, Melā, mela, or Muslim holidays, eid. A festival constitutes typical cases of glocalization, as well as the high culture-low culture interrelationship. Next to religion and folklore, a significant origin is agriculture, agricultural. Food is such a vital resource that many festivals are associated with harvest time. Religious commemoration and thanksgiving for good harvests are blended in events that take place in autumn, such as Halloween in the northern hemisphere and Easter in the southern. Festivals often serve to fulfill specific communal purposes, especially in regard to commemoration or thanking to the gods, goddesses or saints: they are called patronal festivals. They may also provide entertainment, which was particularly important to local communities before ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Johan Ibsen (; ; 20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a Norwegian playwright and theatre director. As one of the founders of modernism in theatre, Ibsen is often referred to as "the father of realism" and one of the most influential playwrights of his time. His major works include ''Brand'', '' Peer Gynt'', '' An Enemy of the People'', ''Emperor and Galilean'', ''A Doll's House'', ''Hedda Gabler'', '' Ghosts'', ''The Wild Duck'', ''When We Dead Awaken'', ''Rosmersholm'', and ''The Master Builder''. Ibsen is the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare, and ''A Doll's House'' was the world's most performed play in 2006. Ibsen's early poetic and cinematic play ''Peer Gynt'' has strong surreal elements. After ''Peer Gynt'' Ibsen abandoned verse and wrote in realistic prose. Several of his later dramas were considered scandalous to many of his era, when European theatre was expected to model strict morals of family life and propriety. Ibsen's later wo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peer Gynt
''Peer Gynt'' (, ) is a five- act play in verse by the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen published in 1876. Written in Norwegian, it is one of the most widely performed Norwegian plays. Ibsen believed ''Per Gynt'', the Norwegian fairy tale on which the play is loosely based, to be rooted in fact, and several of the characters are modelled after Ibsen's own family, notably his parents Knud Ibsen and Marichen Altenburg. He was also generally inspired by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen's collection of Norwegian fairy tales, published in 1845 (''Huldre-Eventyr og Folkesagn''). ''Peer Gynt'' chronicles the journey of its title character from the Norwegian mountains to the North African desert and back. According to Klaus Van Den Berg, "its origins are romantic, but the play also anticipates the fragmentations of emerging modernism" and the "cinematic script blends poetry with social satire and realistic scenes with surreal ones."Klaus Van Den Berg, "Peer Gynt" (review), ''Theatre Journal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Myfanwy Piper
Mary ''Myfanwy'' Piper (; Welsh: ; 28 March 1911 – 18 January 1997) was a British art critic and opera librettist. Biography Mary Myfanwy Evans was born on 28 March 1911 into a Welsh family in London. Her father was a chemist in Hampstead, north London. She attended North London Collegiate School, where she won a scholarship to read English Language and Literature at St Hugh's College, Oxford. From 1935 to 1937, she edited the periodical ''Axis'' which was devoted to abstract art. She married the artist John Piper in 1937, and lived with him in rural surroundings at Fawley Bottom, Buckinghamshire (near Henley-on-Thames) for much of her life.Frances Spalding, ''John Piper, Myfanwy Piper: Lives in art''. Oxford University Press, 2009. . Between 1954 and 1973 she collaborated with the composer Benjamin Britten on several of his operas, and between 1977 and 1981 with composer Alun Hoddinott on most of his operatic works. She was a friend of the poet John Betjeman, who wrote sever ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral and chamber pieces. His best-known works include the opera '' Peter Grimes'' (1945), the '' War Requiem'' (1962) and the orchestral showpiece ''The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra'' (1945). Born in Lowestoft, Suffolk, the son of a dentist, Britten showed talent from an early age. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London and privately with the composer Frank Bridge. Britten first came to public attention with the '' a cappella'' choral work '' A Boy was Born'' in 1934. With the premiere of ''Peter Grimes'' in 1945, he leapt to international fame. Over the next 28 years, he wrote 14 more operas, establishing himself as one of the leading 20th-century composers in the genre. In addition to large-sca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Turn Of The Screw (opera)
''The Turn of the Screw'' is a 20th-century English chamber opera composed by Benjamin Britten with a libretto by Myfanwy Piper, "wife of the artist John Piper, who had been a friend of the composer since 1935 and had provided designs for several of the operas". Kennedy, Michael, "Benjamin Britten", in The libretto is based on the 1898 novella ''The Turn of the Screw'' by Henry James. The opera was commissioned by the Venice Biennale and given its world premiere on 14 September 1954, at the Teatro La Fenice, Venice. The original recording was made during January of the next year, with the composer conducting. Described as one of the most dramatically appealing English operas, the opera in two acts has a prologue and sixteen scenes, each preceded by a variation on the twelve-note 'Screw' theme. Typically of Britten, the music mixes tonality and dissonance, with Britten's recurrent use of a twelve-tone figure being perhaps a nod to the approach of Arnold Schoenberg. Thematical ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Galt MacDermot
Arthur Terence Galt MacDermot (December 18, 1928 – December 17, 2018) was a Canadian-American composer, pianist and writer of musical theater. He won a Grammy Award for the song " African Waltz" in 1960. His most-successful musicals were ''Hair'' (1967; its cast album also won a Grammy) and '' Two Gentlemen of Verona'' (1971). MacDermot also composed music for film soundtracks, jazz and funk albums, and classical music, and his music has been sampled in hit hip-hop songs and albums. He is best known for his work on ''Hair'', which produced three number-one singles in 1969: " Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In", "Good Morning Starshine", and the title song "Hair". Biography MacDermot was born in Montreal, the son of Canadian diplomat Terence MacDermot and Elizabeth Savage. He was educated at Upper Canada College and Bishop's University (Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada). He received a bachelor's degree in music from Cape Town University, South Africa, and made a study of African musi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
My Fur Lady
''My Fur Lady'' is a satirical musical theatre production, first staged in Canada in the 1950s. Directed by Brian Macdonald, it was premiered in Montreal on February 7, 1957, by McGill University students. A revue, it tells the story of Princess Aurora Borealis (the contralto Ann Golden) of "Mukluko" ("near" Baffin Island) who is searching for a husband, to help keep her country independent from Canada. The music combined elements of 1940s tunes, the contemporary 1950s rock and roll era and a degree of jazz, while the lyrics reflected the political events of the times. It was co-written and produced by James de Beaujeu Domville, Timothy Porteous, Donald MacSween, Galt MacDermot, Harry Garber and Roy Wolvin. Later in 1957 the production played at the Stratford Festival, and toured Canada during the rest of the year and into 1958. 402 performances were given, across 82 locations. An original cast recording A cast recording is a recording of a stage musical that is intend ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Twelfth Night
''Twelfth Night'', or ''What You Will'' is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written around 1601–1602 as a Twelfth Night's entertainment for the close of the Christmas season. The play centres on the twins Viola and Sebastian, who are separated in a shipwreck. Viola (who is disguised as Cesario) falls in love with the Duke Orsino, who in turn is in love with Countess Olivia. Upon meeting Viola, Countess Olivia falls in love with her thinking she is a man. The play expanded on the musical interludes and riotous disorder expected of the occasion, with plot elements drawn from the short story "Of Apollonius and Silla" by Barnabe Rich, based on a story by Matteo Bandello. The first recorded public performance was on 2 February 1602, at Candlemas, the formal end of Christmastide in the year's calendar. The play was not published until its inclusion in the 1623 First Folio. Characters * Viola – a shipwrecked young woman who disguises herself a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts Prince Hamlet and his attempts to exact revenge against his uncle, Claudius, who has murdered Hamlet's father in order to seize his throne and marry Hamlet's mother. ''Hamlet'' is considered among the "most powerful and influential tragedies in the English language", with a story capable of "seemingly endless retelling and adaptation by others". There are many works that have been pointed to as possible sources for Shakespeare's play—from ancient Greek tragedies to Elizabethan plays. The editors of the Arden Shakespeare question the idea of "source hunting", pointing out that it presupposes that authors always require ideas from other works for their own, and suggests that no author can have an original idea or be an originator. When ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Rape Of Lucrece
''The Rape of Lucrece'' (1594) is a narrative poem by William Shakespeare about the legendary Roman noblewoman Lucretia. In his previous narrative poem, '' Venus and Adonis'' (1593), Shakespeare had included a dedicatory letter to his patron, the Earl of Southampton, in which he promised to compose a "graver labour". Accordingly, ''The Rape of Lucrece'' has a serious tone throughout. The poem begins with a prose dedication addressed directly to the Earl of Southampton, which begins, "The love I dedicate to your Lordship is without end." It refers to the poem as a pamphlet, which describes the form of its original publication of 1594. The dedication is followed by "The Argument", a prose paragraph that summarizes the historical context of the poem, which begins ''in medias res''. The poem contains 1,855 lines, divided into 265 stanzas of seven lines each. The meter of each line is iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme for each stanza is ABABBCC, a format known as "rhyme royal" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
_-_Scene_from_'Twelfth_Night'_('Malvolio_and_the_Countess')_-_N00423_-_National_Gallery.jpg "Click for more on -> Twelfth Night")
