Jonathan Church's first season as artistic director includes some big changes to the festival.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
The Stratford Festival’s 2027 season, the first to be programmed by Jonathan Church, will feature a Des McAnuff-directed Hamlet, a triple bill of plays starring Saul Rubinek and Mary Poppins, co-directed by Brits Jonathan O’Boyle and Stephen Mear.
Announced on Wednesday, the season marks big changes for the fest – and not just because Church will officially become its artistic director in November after a year of working in a transitional role with outgoing AD Antoni Cimolino.
For one, the company will follow the Shaw Festival’s lead by moving to earlier start times for performances, with matinees at 1:30 and evening performances at 7:30. (Shaw moved its start times to 1 and 7 in 2025.) Some shows, particularly those aimed at school-age audiences, will also include noon matinees.
As well, Stratford will replace its customary string of opening nights at the end of May with a shorter run of four shows, followed by another batch of four in June. Additional openings will take place in July, August, September and October, signalling a potential manoeuvre to year-round programming over the course of Church’s tenure.
In an interview, Church, a dual citizen of Canada and Britain whose professional life has largely been spent in the United Kingdom, said Stratford has been considering a move to earlier start times for years.
“We have a big group of patrons who travel just to see one or two shows in a day, and they don’t stay over,” he said. “For them, a slightly earlier finish time could make the difference about whether they feel they can drive home. That felt significant.”
Stratford’s 75th season kicks off in the 1,833-seat Festival Theatre with Mary Poppins. Mear, who co-choreographed the musical’s original West End production in 2004, will choreograph. Vanessa Sears, known for playing Juliet both at the Stratford Festival and in Mirvish’s all-Canadian & Juliet, will star in the title role.
Donna Feore, the company’s artistic associate for musical theatre development, will remount her 2022 production of Chicago, set to begin previews at the Festival Theatre at the end of May.
“Donna’s work with the festival is vitally important,” Church said. Feore, often the best-selling director in a given Stratford season, helmed both musicals this year: Something Rotten! and Guys and Dolls. Like those productions, next year’s Chicago will effectively be a restaging.
“Yes, it’s a remount, but for a different reason than Something Rotten!,” he said. “We wanted something that was a brilliant contrast to Mary Poppins, and there’s probably nothing more of a contrast than Chicago. Very few people got to see that brilliant production in 2022 because it was so close to COVID. … It’s a celebration of what she’s done, and giving it its full opportunity to shine.”
Church added that Feore will continue to be a “vital part” of the festival moving forward, saying the company is “actively developing” work for her to do in future seasons.
A third musical, a world premiere adaptation of Mordecai Richler’s Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang, will play in the Tom Patterson Theatre. With a book by David S. Craig and music and lyrics by sisters Anika and Britta Johnson, the Stratford Festival commission will be produced in partnership with Theatre Calgary and directed by that company’s artistic director, Stafford Arima.
Another curveball: The Stratford Festival, internationally renowned for its repertory system in which actors play multiple roles across multiple productions, will use its 1,077-seat Avon Theatre to present shows “in stock,” or with casts that only perform in one show.
The impetus for changing the venue’s producing model is manifold, said Church. One show in the Avon, a remount of Kat Sandler’s 2025 adaptation of Anne of Green Gables, will play for a month-long run in September before touring to the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton in October. Owing to the logistics of the production’s tour (more cities are soon to be announced), including it in the festival’s repertory system was impossible, Church said.
Noël Coward’s Present Laughter, directed by Richard Ouzounian and starring Will & Grace’s Eric McCormack, will begin previews in the Avon in October. Again, its exclusion from the repertory system is logistical, Church said, owing to McCormack’s schedule.
The rest of the Avon’s programming will be directed by Church himself. Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, adapted for the stage by Mike Poulton as a two-part epic, will kick off their Canadian premieres in June.
As far as Shakespeare, the festival will produce Hamlet, The Taming of the Shrew and The Merchant of Venice. Hamlet – which, like most of the 2027 season, will see its casting revealed in a separate announcement – will mark McAnuff’s first return to Stratford since his departure from the festival’s top job in 2012.
“I love Des’s work and his response to the festival stage, particularly against the musicals,” Church said. “I’ve been lucky enough to see the work of more than one artistic director here. To bring people back who’ve been important to the history of the organization feels part and parcel of what I’d love to do.”
The Taming of the Shrew, directed by Krista Jackson, will play in the Tom Patterson Theatre. So will The Merchant of Venice, directed by Chris Abraham and starring Rubinek as Shylock.
Rubinek’s hat trick of shows will additionally include Playing Shylock, familiar to Toronto audiences from its premiere at Canadian Stage in 2024, and All in the Telling, a new play loosely based on Rubinek’s own life as the child of Holocaust survivors. Both will play in the festival’s studio theatre alongside Daniel David Moses’s Almighty Voice and His Wife, directed by Yvette Nolan.
“I wanted to make the audience feel that while there are changes coming, at the heart, this season is very much celebrating the strengths of the last 74 years,” Church said, paying respect to outgoing artistic director Cimolino. Two of next season’s shows – Chicago and Anne of Green Gables – come from Cimolino’s tenure, an intentional choice on Church’s part, he continued.
“I’m taking my learnings from Antoni and this company’s other artistic directors, and just giving it a slight twist,” he said.