By Keith Tomasek, Aug. 28, 2024

Stratford Festival artistic director Antoni Cimolino announced the Stratford Festival 2025 season lineup, a playbill of classic and new texts, that celebrates harmony and examines the forces that enhance it or work against it.

Highlights of the Stratford Festival 2025 Season:

• Antoni Cimolino returns to Shakespeare with “The Winter’s Tale.”
• Chris Abraham returns to direct “As You Like It.”
• Yvette Nolan returns with a new play, “The Art of War,” about a Canadian artist sent to the front lines as an embedded painter.
• Kat Sandler’s adaptation of, and direction on, “Anne of Green Gables.”
• Kate Hamill’s adaptation of “Sense and Sensibility” directed by Daryl Cloran.
• Stafford Arima, who directed the 2010 hit, “Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris,” featuring Brent Carver, directs “Forgiveness,” adapted from the book “Forgiveness: A Gift From My Grandparents” by Mark Sakamoto.

As previously announced, Donna Feore returns to direct “Annie.”

Robert Lepage directs “Macbeth,” set in the milieu of Quebec’s biker gangs.



The Stratford Festival 2025 Season:

FESTIVAL THEATRE

As You Like It
By William Shakespeare
Director: Chris Abraham

Rediscover Shakespeare’s tale of transformation and resilience, in a production directed by Chris Abraham, whose Much “Ado About Nothing” was a critical and box office hit last season.

Annie
Book By Thomas Meehan
Music by Charles Strouse
Lyrics by Martin Charnin
Original Broadway Production Directed by Martin Charnin
Based on “Little Orphan Annie”® by permission of Tribune Content Agency, LLC

Director and Choreographer: Donna Feore
Music Director: Laura Burton

Donna Feore is back with a musical for the whole family. “Annie,” winner of seven Tony Awards, is one of the most popular musicals ever written. It’s filled with memorable and oh-so-hummable songs, including “Tomorrow”, “It’s the Hard Knock Life” and “You’re Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile.”

Sense and Sensibility
By Kate Hamill
Based on the novel by Jane Austen
Director: Daryl Cloran

This production of Jane Austen’s beloved classic will use an adaptation by Kate Hamill, one of the most exciting and oft-produced playwrights working today.

Daryl Cloran is the artistic director of Edmonton’s Citadel Theatre and has credits at major theatres nationwide, including a wildly popular Beatles-inspired production of “As You Like It,” which he’s directing this October at The Grand Theatre in London, On.

Earlier in his career, Cloran chalked up several credits at the Stratford Festival, including as assistant director on “Caesar and Cleopatra” starring Christopher Plummer. 

Dangerous Liaisons
By Christopher Hampton
From the novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Choderlos de Laclos

Director: Esther Jun

Esther Jun, who is director of the Festival’s Langham Directing Workshop, will direct, after such recent successes as “Cymbeline,” “Les Belles Soeurs” and “Little Women” at the Festival and “Kim’s Convenience,” which she staged most recently in London, UK, receiving tremendous critical and audience response.

AVON THEATRE

Macbeth
By William Shakespeare
Created in collaboration with Ex Machina

Director: Robert Lepage

Robert Lepage’ landmark production of Shakespeare’s little-known play “Coriolanus” took Stratford audiences by storm in 2018.

Set in the milieu of Quebec’s biker gangs, Lepage’s “Macbeth” will reflect on violence and the allegiances that drive it, revealing the horrors that grow unhindered once the seeds of evil are planted in the soul.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
Book by Jeffrey Lane
Music and Lyrics by David Yazbek
Based on the film “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” written by Dale Launer and Stanley Shapiro & Paul Henning
Original Broadway production directed by Jack O’Brien

Director: Bobby Garcia
Choreographer: Stephanie Graham
Music Director: Franklin Brasz

Bobby Garcia has directed a string of major musicals, primarily in Hong Kong, Manila and Singapore, with credits including “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical,” “Fun Home,” “Waitress,” “Urinetown, “Dreamgirls” and more.

Stephanie Graham did the choreography for this season’s “Twelfth Night.” She has worked as a director and choreographer across Canada and won the 2015 Dora Award for outstanding choreography Opera/Musical for “The “Wild Party.”

Anne of Green Gables
A new adaptation by Kat Sandler
Based on the novel by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Director: Kat Sandler

Kat Sandler is known for her deeply funny yet poignant plays, including  “Mustard,” for which she was awarded the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play in 2016. She has written and directed extensively across Canada.

TOM PATTERSON THEATRE

The Winter’s Tale
By William Shakespeare

Director: Antoni Cimolino

Artistic director Antoni Cimolino directs one of his most beloved Shakespeare plays, “The Winter’s Tale,” one of Shakespeare’s final romances, a bittersweet drama of wrath and regret – culminating in one of the most poignant reunions ever written.

Forgiveness
By Hiro Kanagawa
Adapted from the book “Forgiveness: A Gift From My Grandparents” by Mark Sakamoto

Director: Stafford Arima

Stafford Arima, the Artistic Director of Theatre Calgary, has a string of Broadway and West End credits to his name, including as director of the original Broadway production of the musical “Allegiance.” His memorable production of “Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris,” featuring Brent Carver, was a highlight of the 2010 Stratford seaason.

Ransacking Troy
By Erin Shields

Director: Jackie Maxwell
Choreographer: Esie Mensah

Written by Erin Shields, the dynamo behind 2018’s “Paradise Lost,” “Ransacking Troy” is a compelling adaptation of the Trojan War narrative through the lens of its female players. Funny, intriguing and always thought-provoking, this retelling of “The Iliad and The Odessey” whisks audiences away on a bold adventure.

STUDIO THEATRE

The Art of War
By Yvette Nolan

Director: Keith Barker

Yvette Nolan, who directed the 2023 hit “Women of the Fur Trade” has written a dramatic exploration of artists’ roles in war and peace.

During the Second World War, Nick is sent to the front lines as an embedded painter. What he witnesses, what he paints, will transform not only him but Canada’s idea of itself.

Keith Barker has extensive credits as a director, dramaturge and actor, including his role as Louis Riel in “Women of the Fur Trade. ”

DETAILS DETAILS
Tickets for the Stratford Festival 2025 season will go on sale to Members of the Stratford Festival beginning November 10 and to the public on December 16.

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