By Keith Tomasek, Aug. 23, 2024

The Shaw Festival 2025 season kicks off in April with C.S. Lewis’s “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.”

The season continues with farces, a thrilling murder mystery or two, a timeless toe-tapping musical, one of Shaw’s most satisfyingly funny and unsettling plays, and a Canadian premiere.

Highlights of the Shaw Festival 2025 season Include:

• Selma Dimitrijevic to direct “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.”
• A fresh spin on the whodunit genre directed by Rebecca Northan and Bruce Horak “Murder on the Lake.”
• Kimberley Rampersad to direct “Anything Goes.”
• The Canadian premiere of Pearl Cleage’s “Blues For An Alabama Sky.”



Kimberley Rampersad, Tim Carrol. Photo David Cooper

Artistic director Tim Carroll says that during the Shaw Festival 2025 season the company plans to explore different ways to bring art to life, adding “We’ve made it a focus this season to engage and interact with our audience a bit more as well, because it’s good for the spirit.”



Here’s the complete playbill of The Shaw Festival 2025 season:

FESTIVAL THEATRE

THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE
April 9 – October 4

Co-Adapted for the stage by Selma Dimitrijevic and Tim Carroll
Based on the novel by C.S. Lewis
Directed by Selma Dimitrijevic

Step through the wardrobe and enter a magical world of breathtaking battles, mythical creatures and unforgettable characters in a new adaptation of C.S. Lewis’s classic story about love, redemption, loyalty and what it takes to be a hero.

ANYTHING GOES
May 2 – October 4

Music and Lyrics by Cole Porter
Original Book by P.G. Wodehouse & Guy Bolton and Howard Lindsay & Russel Crouse New Book by Timothy Crouse & John Weidman
Directed and choreographed by Kimberley Rampersad

This fresh revival of Cole Porter’s timeless tale of romance, intrigue and high-seas hijinks brims with spectacular dance numbers and non-stop laughter.

WAIT UNTIL DARK
June 25 – October 5

By Frederick Knott
Adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher
Directed by Sanjay Talwar

In a New York apartment, darkness and light face off in this suspense-filled thriller. Susan, a young woman who recently lost her sight, becomes the target of a ruthless gang of criminals. As darkness falls, she must use all her wits to survive this heart-stopping, high-stakes game of cat and mouse.



ROYAL GEORGE THEATRE

TONS OF MONEY
April 11 – October 5

By Will Evans and Valentine
Directed by Eda Holmes

To escape the clutches of his creditors, failed inventor Aubrey Allington devises a scheme to fake his own death, then assume the identity of his long-lost cousin – all to inherit tons of money. This madcap, fast-moving farce will have you in stitches from start to finish.

MAJOR BARBARA
June 1 – October 5

By Bernard Shaw
Directed by Peter Hinton-Davis

As provocative as it was in 1907, this play continues to resonate and raise questions about justice, morality and the truth of human nature. Bursting with Shaw’s inimitable wit and incisive dialogue, idealism and reality clash in this three- act social satire.

MURDER-ON-THE-LAKE
July 26 – October 4

A Spontaneous Theatre Creation
By Rebecca Northan and Bruce Horak
Directed by Rebecca Northan

A shocking murder has rocked the tranquil town of Niagara-on-the-Lake, and the dastardly crime can only be solved with the assistance of a great detective – randomly chosen from the audience. This fresh new spin on the whodunit will have the entire theatre deducing who had the means, motive and opportunity from the moment the curtain rises.

A different show and endgame at every performance. Brought to you by the creators of the 2023 smash hit, “The Game of Love and Chance.”

JACKIE MAXWELL STUDIO THEATRE

GNIT
June 19 – October 4

By Will Eno
Directed by Tim Carroll

A rollicking and very cautionary tale about how the opposite of love is laziness, from the author of the 2017 smash hit Middletown. Peter Gnit, a funny-enough but so-so specimen of humanity, embarks on a lifetime of bad decisions in search of his True Self, an ideal which is disintegrating even as he searches for it. An existential comedy, Gnit is a faithful, unfaithful and willfully American reading of Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, a 19th-century Norwegian play which is famous for all the wrong reasons.

BLUES FOR AN ALABAMA SKY
A Canadian premiere
August 2 – October 4

By Pearl Cleage
Directed by Kimberley Rampersad

Angel, a struggling singer who has recently been fired from her gig at the Cotton Club, and her friends grapple with love, loss and ambition. Set in the 1930s, this exhilarating drama throws five richly drawn characters into a dynamic story that captures the glamour and true essence of Harlem during its transformative Jazz era.

SPIEGELTENT

DEAR LIAR
May 18 – September 27

By Jerome Kilty
Adapted from the correspondence between Bernard Shaw and Mrs. Patrick Campbell

Bernard Shaw was besotted with – and infuriated by – the great actress Stella Tanner, better known by her stage name, Mrs. Patrick Campbell. This witty and moving two-hander follows their long-lasting relationship through the letters they wrote to one another and some of the scenes that Shaw wrote for his Stella. Two renowned artists find, lose and find each other again through duelling wits, hidden longings and the shared pain of a lifetime in the theatre.

The Shaw Festival 2025 Holiday Season

A CHRISTMAS CAROL
November 1 – December 21
Royal George Theatre

By Charles Dickens
Adapted and originally directed by Tim Carroll
Directed by Tim Carroll

Ebenezer Scrooge returns! The Shaw’s charming annual production of the beloved classic A Christmas Carol will once again warm the cockles of even the most frigid of hearts and remind audiences what the holidays are really all about.

Irving Berlin’s WHITE CHRISTMAS
Based on the Paramount Pictures Film
November 7 – December 21
Festival Theatre

Written For the Screen by Norman Krasna, Norman Panama and Melvin Frank
Music and lyrics by Irving Berlin
Book by David Ives and Paul Blake
Original stage production directed by Walter Bobbie
Orchestrations by Larry Blank
Vocal and Dance Arrangements by Bruce Pomahac
Directed by Kate Hennig

Based on the uplifting, timeless film of the same name, this delightful adaptation features well-known songs like “Blue Skies,” “I Love a Piano,” “How Deep Is the Ocean” and the beloved title song, “White Christmas.”

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