Chilina Kennedy as Maria in West Side Story.Photography by David Hou
The Stratford Festival has announced its casting for the 2027 season, the first to be programmed by incoming artistic director Jonathan Church.
Hamlet, which director Des McAnuff will set in Cold War-era Europe, will be led by Thomas Duplessie, best known to Stratford Festival audiences from his work as Demetrius in this year’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The Hamlet cast will also include Ben Carlson, Heidi Sy Damayo, Peter Fernandes, Brendan McMurtry-Howlett, Stephen Ouimette and Irene Poole.
Mary Poppins, set to star Vanessa Sears (& Juliet) in the title role, will additionally feature Evan Buliung and Chilina Kennedy as Mr. and Mrs. Banks, plus Henry Firmston (Something Rotten) as Bert.
Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang, adapted for the stage by sisters Anika and Britta Johnson and David S. Craig, will see young actors Jackson Graham and Kole Parks share the role of Jacob. Chilina Kennedy will join as Judge Mistress Fowl, along with Kale Penny as the Hooded Fang.
Church’s two-part epic Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, set to be staged in the Stratford Festival’s Avon Theatre, will feature festival mainstay Jonathan Goad as Thomas Cromwell, Marissa Orjalo as Anne Boleyn and André Sills as King Henry VIII. Graham Abbey, Amelia Sargisson and Geraint Wyn Davies will join as Thomas More, Katherine of Aragon and Thomas Wolsey, respectively.
Stratford Festival 2027 season will include earlier start times and the return of Des McAnuff
Joining Will & Grace star Eric McCormack in Noël Coward’s Present Laughter are Goad, Orjalo and Sills, as well as Mike Nadajewski, Moya O’Connell, Fiona Reid and Sara Topham.
Actor Saul Rubinek will complete a hat trick in the 2027 season with three productions: The Merchant of Venice, solo show Playing Shylock and a new play, All in the Telling. Joining Rubinek in The Merchant of Venice are Ben Carlson, Bethany Jillard and Tyrone Savage. All in the Telling will feature Marc Bendavid, Seana McKenna, Chloë Dirksen and Jillard alongside Rubinek.
Almighty Voice and His Wife, written by Daniel David Moses and set to be directed by Yvette Nolan, will feature Katie German as White Girl and Nolan Moberly as Almighty Voice.
The Taming of the Shrew, the final Shakespearean play in the 2027 Stratford season, will star Ijeoma Emesowum (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Wedding Band) as Katharina and David Patrick Flemming as Petruchio. Rounding out the cast are Lucinda Davis, Peter Fernandes, Devin MacKinnon and Olivia Sinclair-Brisbane.
Donna Feore’s Chicago, a remount of the festival’s 2022 production, will feature much of the same principal cast: Dan Chameroy, Jennifer Rider-Shaw, R. Markus and Steve Ross will return as Billy Flynn, Velma Kelly, Mary Sunshine and Amos Hart, respectively. Jamillah Ross and Celeste Catena join the main cast as Matron Mama Morton and Roxie Hart.
Kat Sandler’s Anne of Green Gables will feature the same cast as in 2025. Following its month-long engagement in Stratford, the production will tour to a handful of Canadian cities; only the Citadel Theatre’s run in Edmonton has yet been announced.