Shaw Magazine for Friends and Partners 2017

MAGAZINE FOR FRIENDS AND PARTNERS 2017

2017 | Shawfest.com

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Contents 2

The Importance of Seeming

6

Talking Shaw, Shakespeare and Saint Joan

10

Dear Mr Carroll

13

Reading Series

14

Interview with a Vampire Director

16

Conversing Through Photography

— Toronto Star

18 News 20 Upcoming Member Events 21

Shaw Ensemble

ONLINE To read this issue online, go to shawfest.com/shawmag2017 Shaw Magazine is a publication for the Friends and Partners of the Shaw Festival.

Editorial Committee: Tim Carroll, Tim Jennings, Marion Rawson Artistic Director: Tim Carroll Executive Director: Tim Jennings Editor: Marion Rawson Design: Key Gordon Communications Production and Ensemble photography: David Cooper Photography Backstage and Niagara photography: Cosmo Condina Photography Special Thanks: Nathalie Ivany-Becchetti, Jeff MacKay Your comments are welcome. Please call the Membership Office at 1.800.657.1106 ext 2556 Shaw Festival 10 Queen’s Parade Box 774 Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON L0S 1J0

For our American Friends: Shaw Festival Foundation P.O. Box 628 Lewiston, NY 14092-9819

1.800.511.SHAW SHAWFEST.COM Cover: Sara Topham in Saint Joan

Production sponsor

Production sponsors Right: Kristi Frank and Michael Therriault in Me and My Girl

“High-energy, crowdpleasing romp.”

William & Nona Macdonald Heaslip Foundation

“And we’ll have love, laughter, Be happy ever after, Me – and my girl.”

THE IMPORTANCE OF SEEMING

By Robert Hetherington

“I have always been myself even when I was ill. Only now I seem myself. That’s the important thing. I have remembered how to seem.”

– The Madness of George III 2

2017 | 1.800.511.7429

Audiences for Alan Bennett’s funny and sad history play will have the disorienting experience of seeming to view the Royal George auditorium duplicated and extended onstage, trompe l’oeil-like – same architecture, distinctive red colour, gold moulding, and emblem over the top of the arch with matching chandeliers onstage and in the house.

It is an imaginary completion of the Royal George theatre space.

For a play which looks at a British monarch’s grasp of reality, the experience of viewing the double auditorium echoes the paradox posed in George’s realization – the difference between “being” and “seeming”. It was director Kevin Bennett’s idea to place audiences onstage, to emphasize a sense of involvement and the fun of playing.

Though rehearsals had just started when I spoke with set designer Ken MacDonald and costume designer Christopher David Gauthier, it was already clear that the audience could expect something very unusual going on here. No Georgian Downton Abbey, The Madness of George III is a play that examines appearance versus reality.

Christopher has worked with director Bennett nine times before and knows what Kevin likes to explore. Ken was working with the director for the first time, but as a frequent designer at The Shaw (including last season’s Engaged and Our Town), he knows the Royal George well.

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Previous page: Tom McCamus, Ryan Cunningham and Chick Reid. Below: Chick Reid and Tom McCamus.

Was the idea of recreating a version of the Royal George auditorium onstage an early starting point or something that evolved through the collaboration?

Ken: It came very early in the process and was Kevin’s idea. In fact, we did not meet for a long time and the collaboration included lots of Skyping. Though some of it is made up from an architectural point of view, we went to great pains to match the colours exactly to the Royal George. It is actually not a large playing space, once you account for the boxes on each side for the onstage audience of 28 — only about 14 feet from box to box across the stage. As Kevin says, we are having George in the Royal George. The design tries to acknowledge that.

How do you imagine the onstage audience will contribute to the performance?

Ken: As a designer I like to control what the audience sees and how it sees it, so initially I was a bit resistant to the idea of the onstage audience. Once you buy into it, the possibilities just become worth the risks.

Christopher: I know Kevin’s aesthetic and his belief that the audience should not be passive. They are included in the conversation, if they wish to be. It is play, after all. One of the

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things I love about this director is that he plays, too. The line between the stage and the audience is blurred, and the lines among the Court characters can also blur. Actors play parts, and the audience is also asked to play. How much is an individual choice.

The original cast of characters is enormous, calling for 35-40 roles, and this is a company of 12 ...

Christopher: … yes, so doubling became a requirement. One choice could have been to make cast doubling decisions based on who is offstage and available, or another way is to ask, “Who is the most interesting choice of actor to double that role?” That is the direction we went. For most of the play the actors play a role on the King’s side, and also a character on the opposing Prince’s side. It’s a show about role playing and change — in full view of the audience.

And part of the challenge in switching between a servant and a member of the Court instantly is to consider how much of a costume change the audience needs to have to stay in the story? A coat, a hat, and a pair of glasses? Can that be enough? We are also colour-coding the show to help the audience follow the conflict. Armies and sports teams know all about how important that can be.

Have you discovered that any of the proposed doubling is impossible for the costume designer to solve?

Christopher: Not yet. We have asked if an actor can talk with themselves in a scene, as something to be explored in rehearsal?

We will see. Sometimes people may change onstage even when they don’t absolutely have to, perhaps to show someone changing sides in relation to the King.

I doubt the audience is aware that your set has to break down and store backstage in a very tight space with the other two productions in the performance rotation. As a set designer is this a problem you always try to solve as you design the production?

Ken: Actually, no. I do not come at design from any technical background. I made it up and am self-taught. I come from a background in art education. I don’t think about how it has to be built. There are lots of people at The Shaw who solve those problems for me, thank God. It often comes down to an inch of clearance or less, or a cross-over space which forces the actor to cross through another set stored backstage.

One of the reasons I love to work here are the resources you get, and also the artistry of the painters, props people and technical staff.

Sometimes the problem becomes the inspiration for a fun choice. We need a double

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Chippendale bed for the King and Queen but there is just no room to get one onstage.

So the answer was to split the bed in two, and the bedspread covers the seam. In this production, everyone sees the split bed come onstage and get assembled. It becomes part of the theatricality in the playing. The solution supports the production concept.

This is not a costume period common to the kinds of plays The Shaw usually produces. Is everything being built specially for this production?

Christopher: No, one of the requirements here is that a certain percentage of the costumes must be pulled from stock. This is, in my opinion, a really good thing because it forces you as a designer to arrive at creative solutions to transforming stock pieces. We are taking Red Coats for the Court and reworking them to become pages, for example. It is an unusual period — the end of the Georgian time, practically seconds away from the Regency Period and some very dramatic changes in the clothing. And the hair! There is no time to change wigs. Actor Lisa Berry has to play a page and then later a great Lady. With no time to change her wig! Fortunately, in this period wigs really looked like wigs and did not have to pass as natural hair.

“Strong ensemble ... terrific comedic timing” – Toronto Star From top: Tom McCamus and the cast; Tom McCamus and Chick Reid.

I saw the set onstage this week and it is already so strikingly different from anything I have seen at the Royal George before. What would you like the audience to take away with them?

Ken: I am very happy with it. I hope they leave with a sense of involvement and fun.

Production sponsor

James & Diane King 2017 | 1.800.511.7429

Sponsoring Madness at the Shaw Festival

By Diane King There was a palpable air of expectation in the sunny rehearsal room carved out of the Festival Theatre Lobby when I found my way there on a Saturday in early March. Chairs had been set out in two concentric circles. On the inner circle of 12 chairs sat the actors in The Madness of George III; in the outer circle sat the audience, composed of Friends of The Shaw. Where the two circles touched director Kevin Bennett, and stage manager Diane Konkin had set up for work. When we were settled, Kevin welcomed us all to the first Open Rehearsal ever held at the Shaw Festival and then explained that he proposed to work that morning the same way that he and the actors had been working for the past five days, with one important difference: he would include the audience in the process. Without further explanation, he invited everyone in the room to stand and form one big circle.

“One thing which drew me to sponsor a play was the desire to understand in more detail the process of moving from page to stage.”

Expectation slid into something closer to apprehension as I wondered, “What would be asked of us?” Kevin initiated a series of exercises, involving rhythmic clapping, passed around the circle of audience and actors. When we resumed our seats, Kevin directed the actors to begin from the place in the script where they had stopped last day’s rehearsal, directing the actors to read from the script, then stop as if they had forgotten the next word, point at another actor, who would then suggest a word which might fit by saying it aloud. They began this way but then the actors began pointing at us, the audience! The actor would smile in thanks and continue, whether the suggestion was correct or not — more often not! So the rehearsal began and continued for two hours with Kevin changing the exercises, but always keeping the audience members focused by their need to respond with a word or a gesture to the actors, and by the uncertainty about who would be asked next for a response.

both actors and audience a communal experience?” The first step for the actors on this journey is to engage with the text in a room with other actors, to speak the words aloud and begin to make them your own. How exciting to see the beginning of the process in that Open Rehearsal in March!

I was in the room that morning because my husband Jim and I are sponsoring the current production of The Madness of George III. Having sponsored The Divine in 2015 and Uncle Vanya in 2016, I have enjoyed being in the theatre, watching the director in tech rehearsals, as she worked with the actors, the lighting and sound designers and their technicians, and with the music director to coax the production into shape. I began to grasp the nature of the stage manager’s job as she recorded every change as it was made. But this was the first time I had witnessed a rehearsal with actors at such an early stage, letting the words direct them what to do as they spoke them, beginning to prepare for putting their characters on the stage.

In the past I have read plays, taught drama to university students, and attended hundreds of productions. Sponsoring plays at The Shaw has enabled me to step out of the audience, go behind the scenes and learn more about the complex process of building a production. As well, I have enjoyed meeting some of the creative and ingenious people who take great delight in bringing these works to life. I look forward to returning to my seat in the audience with greater anticipation as a result of this illuminating peek behind the curtain.

One thing which drew me to sponsor a play was the desire to understand in more detail the process of moving from page to stage. The printed text exists in the mind of the reader as a potential play. I wondered, “How do the director, cast and crew work together to transform that into an actual play on the stage which, when performed for an audience, becomes for

2017 | Shawfest.com

Madness is in the middle of this journey from page to stage as I write this, and I have had further glimpses behind the scenes. I have not only seen Ken MacDonald’s transformative set, I have walked on the parquet floor and climbed the stairs to the second level of on-stage audience seating. I have met with Christopher Gautier, the costume designer, who showed me his costume sketches and some samples of the gorgeous fabrics he had assembled. In Wardrobe I talked to two of the Cutters and the Dyer and, in company with the designer, I learned more about the elaborate process of building a costume from the designer’s sketch.

Diane King (centre) with cast, creative team, Tim Carroll and Board Chair Peter Jewett.

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Talking Shaw, Shakespeare and Saint Joan

“ ... a grand story, told here by a playwright at the height of his talent, a director with a clear vision and a cast pouring everything they have into the challenge at hand.”

— Buffalo News

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2017 | 1.800.511.7429

Sara Topham (ST) and Benedict Campbell (BC) who play, respectively, Joan of Arc and the Archbishop in Saint Joan sat down on a snowy afternoon during early rehearsals for a cosy chat with their director, Tim Carroll (TC).

TC: I’m going to start with how you know each other. So presumably, Sara and Ben, you’d never met each other before the first day of rehearsal?

BC: Absolutely true.

ST: Actually no. I’m not surprised Ben doesn’t remember, I was so in awe of him.

BC: (laughing) I do remember!

ST: I know you do. We met my very first season at the Stratford Festival. Ben was playing one of the eponymous Musketeers. I was carrying a basket of fruit.

TC: How many seasons at The Shaw?

BC: I think this is my fourteenth season.

ST: This is my first.

Sara Topham

TC: Is it fair to say you’ve not done Shaw before Sara?

ST: I have only done one Shaw play before ...

TC: Undershaft really strikes me as the best example of Shaw — the way he will give every side its best version of the argument. He doesn’t load the dice. Shall we talk about his Saint Joan?

ST: It’s funny, I’ve mostly done classical plays, like Shakespeare, and I’m used to being outnumbered and one of the few women in the room. But there is something so particular in the dynamic of Joan and the men that she’s encountering, that I’m really grateful to have a room full of male actors who are on my side off-stage, so that we can be on opposing sides on-stage.

TC: Well, that’s one more than me!

ST: I played Eliza in Pygmalion.

TC: Really? Well done!

ST: When I was in university in Victoria, BC, I did community theatre.

Benedict Campbell

Tim Carroll

2017 | Shawfest.com

TC: What’s your favourite Shaw role, Ben? BC: Undershaft [from Shaw’s Major Barbara]. Unquestionably my favourite out of the ones I’ve done. The first time I did it [2005] I was just coming out of being ill, so I didn’t get to rehearse it very much. I didn’t do any of the background work that you do in rehearsal. The second time around was considerably more fun for me [2013]. A richer version for that reason, I think.

TC: Now if I make a comparison with Shakespeare, it’s not actually because I’m obsessed with Shakespeare. There are three good reasons for the comparison: Shaw himself was obsessed with Shakespeare; Saint Joan is Shaw’s most Shakespearian play and he clearly would have had Henry VI and other plays in his mind as a model; and you’re both noted Shakespearians. It’s a good question to ask: how does Saint Joan feel like or unlike Shakespeare?

ST: In a weird way it doesn’t feel that different when I say it out loud.

Brian Bedford used to say that you need to take the text fully into you and digest it, so that when it comes out of you, it’s yours. For me, they are the same, in that you cannot help when you see the words on

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ST: Does the box protect you or keep you out?

TC: Well again, that’s a theatrical thing, isn’t it? You can’t do that sort of thing on film. Although films can be very poetic, they’re not metaphorical in the same way. It’s a very theatrical device to say, “It’s up to you to decide, audience, what you think this white cube means, or is.”

In a film, that would be sci-fi, and that’s not the same feeling at all.

BC: In the theatre it can be slightly arresting, with the audience thinking, “What’s it going to do?” the page, and as you start to speak them, they have a taste and they have a physical experience that lots of other great playwrights don’t have. They’re like a meal and, already on the page, they are wriggling in motion.

BC: There’s an internal music to the words of Shaw, the same as Shakespeare. Not as a singing performance, but I’m thinking about the rhythm of it.

ST: I love plays where the medium of the theatre itself is an unabashed element in how the playwright is telling the story.

TC: What is the thing that can only be in the theatre about Saint Joan?

ST: I think the music. It comes out of our bodies; we are creating what would in a film be ambience, but here it is the thing itself.

BC: I don’t know if you want us to give much away, but some of the design elements and the free playing style of the play is purely theatre. In film, as a contrast, you have to be absolutely spot on. Saint Joan has a really cool design, with the boxes. The idea that the box is either blank or, with light passing through it, you can have life inside the box. Is it another world there?

Is that the world that is going on while the play is existing?

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TC: Theatre doesn’t have to answer the question, “Why can’t you show us the real thing?” The answer is, “Because we can’t show you the real thing.” We can have a good old go, and if we spent a lot of money and made a really amazing Cathedral, for example, then as a piece of beautiful design that might be very exciting and admirable, but it’s still not going to be the actual cathedral where Ben’s character, the Archbishop presides. Which reminds me, Ben, your Archbishop is actually quite a modern thinker.

BC: Yeah, that surprised me. Certainly I think it’s a pretty bold thing he says in front of the Lord Chamberlain: basically, if I was a simple monk and not in charge of everyone I would probably spend my life studying Aristotle or Pythagoras. The whole idea of the earth being round and going around the sun — that was way ahead of its time.

TC: Yes, you’re not supposed to believe that! Shaw loves his little anachronisms, he loves that they were working out the idea of Protestantism long before it existed. I was reading the other day, about Shaw, and the big discovery for him in drama in the late 19th century was that discussion is as exciting as action, as Ibsen shows us. Warwick and the Archbishop in Saint Joan are two people having a

really important discussion. That’s right, they really do just sit around and talk about Protestantism and nationalism and yet it is so exciting because what they’re actually talking about is whether they’re going to burn a young girl! We know she has to die. This is the beauty of a history play: the tension doesn’t reside in whether she’s going to live or not. The question becomes, “How are you going to get there?” Even at the moment of her great triumphs, you are thinking, “How do we go from here to Joan being burned?”

BC: Particularly in scene six, when it looks like everything has been sorted.

TC: You would be genuinely relieved, wouldn’t you, if you thought that this could go either way? And then the twist happens and you discover that we’re not going to let Joan just go home to her village and sheep. It’s one of my favourite bits in the play.

ST: If we’re really lucky and really good at it, we might have one or two people believe that it’s actually going to be okay?

TC: This is why I would love people to bring their kids to the show, so we have that audience that really doesn’t know the outcome. One of the big misconceptions that people have about so-called ‘difficult plays’, is that they can’t bring their kids – they’re too young and they’ll be bored. Actually, I often find that kids have a better time than the grownups because they don’t come with any preconceptions. They just come and watch what happens, and listen.

I can absolutely imagine a kid of 10, not knowing the story, having a very different experience. It would seem to be a very triumphant play.

Previous page left: Benedict Campbell, Sara Topham and Wade Bogert-O’Brien with cast. Previous page right: Sara Topham and Benedict Campbell. This page: Sara Topham and Andrew Lawrie.

Production sponsor

2017 | 1.800.511.7429

In Memory of Shaw Festival Co-Founder Calvin Rand With Introduction by Thomas R. Hyde Calvin Rand, co-founder of the Shaw Festival in 1962, died on the last day of 2016. Born into one of Buffalo’s great families, Calvin shaped for himself an extraordinary life. For many years he taught philosophy at the University of Buffalo while quietly helping to guide (and, in more than one case, create) important arts organizations on the American side of the Niagara River — ranging from the then-upstart Irish Classical Theatre to the 150-year-old Albright-Knox Art Gallery. Granting him an honorary doctorate in 2010, Buffalo’s Canisius College truthfully observed, “When something positive happens in the local arts community, there’s a good possibility that Calvin G. Rand had a hand in it.” And he had roles beyond Niagara-on-the-Lake and Buffalo. He served, for instance, as President of the American Academy in Rome from 1979 to 1983. But the Shaw Festival was his greatest legacy. When he gave up attending himself, he would still quiz visitors about the plays and actors they had seen. And how often could it have been that the Queen of England would take the arm of an American professor for a performance of — so aptly named — You Never Can Tell?

Thomas R. Hyde was a long-time friend and lawyer to Calvin, a former Chair of Shaw’s Board of Governors and currently serves on our Endowment and US Foundation Boards.

Calvin Rand, an American citizen who was living in Niagara-on-the-Lake as a landed immigrant, and commuting to his job as a philosophy professor at the University of Buffalo, agreed that a “torpor” had overcome the town. It wasn’t just quiet and laid-back, but ... “seedy in spots” and “just plain dull.” The military presence, such as the regimental camps each summer on the Commons, which had long enlivened the town, had diminished. There were no steamers from Toronto anymore, no trains.

Niagara-on-the-Lake, Rand feared, “was becoming a backwater.”

Much about the town impressed [Co-founder Brian Doherty] — its beauty and charm, its fine homes, its long-standing heritage. But

2017 | Shawfest.com

all of this, Doherty sensed, was under threat from the torpor and economic decline that Rand was witnessing.

Doherty decided to call Calvin Rand for advice. Rand’s own theatre experience was extensive, and he shared Doherty’s view that if a theatre were to be established in Niagara-on-the-Lake it should be something more than “just another summer stock company” (Doherty’s words) presenting “warmed-over Broadway shows” (Rand’s words). “We wanted a focus, we wanted a great playwright, we wanted an intellectual,” Rand said. And now, with Shaw fulfilling those needs, Rand recognized that he was being given an opportunity “not just to see theatre, but to help make it.”

The 2017 Shaw Festival production of Saint Joan is dedicated to the memory of Calvin Rand, co-founder of the Shaw Festival. He remained an ex-officio member of our Board until his passing at the age of 87 on December 31, 2016.

As one Festival treasurer put it, Rand was “our showbiz angel.

Without Calvin there would have been no Shaw Festival.”

Rand’s generosity encompassed Festival social events as well ... with opening night audiences as well as Festival actors and staff — some three to four hundred in all — invited to a post-show party at his home on John Street.

But, the Festival’s long-term plans were precarious. There was little argument from anyone ... that a modern, well-equipped theatre was the highest of all priorities for the Shaw Festival. Improvements had been steadily made in the Court House Theatre — air conditioning, semi-comfortable cushions for seats, increased seating capacity, risers for better sight lines — but backstage facilities for actors remained far below adequate, and designers, especially set designers, were constantly struggling to fit plays onto the tiny stage. This problem was one of the reasons that Saint Joan was not attempted at the Festival in the early years.

Many famous people came to the Shaw Festival in the inaugural season of the Festival Theatre [1973]. Ontario Premier William Davis officially opened the theatre on June 12; Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau escorted Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on June 20; and Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh attended a special performance of You Never Can Tell on June 28. Calvin Rand and Brian Doherty were on hand to proudly greet them all.

Excerpts above from The Shaw Festival: the First Fifty Years by Leonard W. Conolly, Corresponding Scholar for the Shaw Festival.

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DEAR MR. CARROLL THE GRANDDAUGHTERS OF ME & MY GIRL AUTHOR L. ARTHUR ROSE WROTE TO TIM CARROLL EARLY IN 2017. IT WAS SUCH A DELIGHTFUL AND FASCINATING LETTER, WITH A SURPRISING SHAW FESTIVAL CONNECTION, THAT WE THOUGHT WE SHOULD SHARE IT WITH YOU!

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From left: Michael Therriault and Kristi Frank; Élodie Gillett and Kyle Blair.

2017 | 1.800.511.7429

Dear Mr. Carroll My name is Victoria Rose. My two sisters and I, Gabrielle Rose and Janine Rose, are the granddaughters of L. Arthur Rose who wrote Me and My Girl. Arthur was my father’s father. We are excited to hear that you are including Me and My Girl in the 2017 season of the Shaw Festival and also thought you might be interested in a little background on the show, as told by my father.

My Grandfather, L. Arthur Rose, started his life in theatre as an actor and vaudeville performer, and later he developed a reputation as a successful West End playwright and director. His younger brother, Sam Rose, was the House Manager at the Victoria Palace in London where Me and My Girl opened during the war.

At that time, Arthur’s son, Ian (my father) was a teenager. The story he always told us was that Me and My Girl was struggling in its opening weeks and theatre management decided to give the cast their two-week notice on a Saturday.

At 6am Friday, the day before the date set for termination notice, the leader of a big band orchestra suffered an attack of acute appendicitis. Jack Payne and his band were scheduled to appear on BBC radio at 8pm that evening. BBC started a search for an act to fill the vacant slot when someone suggested Me and My Girl.

Sam called a rehearsal and rearranged the production to fit into the radio show.

That same night Me and My Girl broadcast on BBC radio. My father said that halfway through Me and My Girl on BBC radio that night the phones in the theatre box office started ringing and they didn’t stop for five years. Me and My Girl became the sweetheart of the war and everyone came to the theatre to escape their troubles, even if it was only for a couple of hours. Me and My Girl opened in 1937 and ran continuously, except for the first four or five days of the war, until somewhere around 1944.

One musical number that was definitely included in the BBC broadcast was “The Lambeth Walk”, the song which closes the first act. This number was a particular favorite of my father’s, in fact, my father was instrumental in encouraging Arthur to keep “The Lambeth Walk” in the show.

2017 | Shawfest.com

Clockwise from top left: Kristi Frank and Michael Therriault with the cast; Michael Therriault; Kyle Blair and Élodie Gillett with the cast; Play Pictorial magazine cover (1938) featuring original cast members from left Teddie St. Denis and Lupino Lane.

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This was fortunate, because “The Lambeth Walk” swept the world. On VE Day (Victory in Europe), Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret danced in the street to it and we’ve been told “The Lambeth Walk” was used during the war as a code in the resistance movement: resistance fighters would sing a line and if they received the next correct line in response they knew they were in good company.

From the stories above you can see that theatre was a family affair with Arthur and his brother in the business, and Arthur’s wife Dorothy was an actress. As a young man, my father, Ian Rose, appeared on stage with Sir Laurence Olivier before deciding to become a doctor. My mother, Eveline, often accompanied Arthur to the theatre eventually putting her acquired knowledge to use helping teach drama and directing occasionally.

The family tradition continues for my sister Gabrielle Rose and me — Janine is a retired lawyer. I have always worked behind the scenes; Production Manager at Neptune Theatre in Halifax in the 90s and more recently lighting shows for Jupiter Productions in Vancouver. Gabrielle is a successful and busy working actress who studied at the Old Vic Theatre School and worked for a number of years in England before moving back to Canada, including some time in Niagaraon-the-Lake, where she appeared in two Shaw Festival productions! Those plays were Peer Gynt and Getting Married, both in 1989.

Me and My Girl has a special place in our hearts and all three of us are planning to come and see the show at some point during its run.

Hopefully this letter has found you. Thank you for taking the time to read it.

Sincerely,

“ ... HALFWAY THROUGH ME AND MY GIRL ON BBC RADIO THAT NIGHT, THE PHONES IN THE THEATRE BOX OFFICE STARTED RINGING AND THEY DIDN’T STOP FOR FIVE YEARS.” Production sponsors

William & Nona Macdonald Heaslip Foundation

Vicky Rose

“WHILE DICTATORS RAGE AND STATESMEN TALK, ALL EUROPE DANCES – TO THE LAMBETH WALK” TIMES OF LONDON HEADLINE, 1938 Excerpt from The Final Curtsey by the Honourable Margaret Rhodes I was 20 in 1945. VE Day was a euphoric moment. I was still at the Palace and that evening we had a huge party. My eldest brother, John, who had been a prisoner of war, was there and a gang of us, including the two Princesses, were given permission by the King and Queen to slip away anonymously and join the rejoicing crowds on the streets.

This sort of freedom was unheard of as far as my cousins were concerned.

There must have been about 16 of us and we had as escort the King’s Equerry, a very correct Royal Navy captain in a pinstriped suit, bowler hat and umbrella. No one

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appeared less celebratory, perhaps because he took his guardian responsibilities too seriously.

Princess Elizabeth was in uniform, as a subaltern in the Auxiliary Transport Service — the ATS. She pulled her peaked cap well down over her face to disguise her much-photographed image ...

Miraculously she got away with it.

London had gone mad with joy.

We could scarcely move; people were laughing and crying; screaming and shouting and perfect strangers were kissing and hugging each other. We danced the conga, a popular new import from Latin America; the Lambeth Walk and the hokey-cokey, and at last fought our way back to the Palace, where there was a vast crowd packed to the railings.

Residents of London’s Lambeth Walk doing the dance of the same name, September 18, 1940, showing their spirits were still high after bombs damaged the area.

2017 | 1.800.511.7429

READING SERIES 2017 “The Reading Series will showcase two pieces that might end up in a future season, or they might just be companion pieces to shows we are already doing.

Either way, they help us to provide a wider range of meals for our hungry audience.”

– Tim Carroll, Artistic Director

The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui

Little Mercy’s First Murder

by Bertolt Brecht

Book and Lyrics by Morwyn Brebner Music by Jay Turvey and Paul Sportelli

Saturday September 9 11am Jackie Maxwell Studio Theatre

Saturday September 30 11am Jackie Maxwell Studio Theatre

Chicago! A city of jazz and gangsters, prohibition and poverty. Amongst the murk of the Great Depression, there’s room for a small time crook like Arturo Ui to make a name for himself. Through a combination of force, political maneuvering and sheer charisma, Ui seizes control of the Windy City and sets his sights on the rest of the country.

A hard-boiled 1940’s Manhattan newspaperman, sent to photograph a crime scene, goes on the lam with the suspect in Morwyn Brebner’s award-winning hit play — the first-ever film noir/social drama/musical comedy!

Written by Bertolt Brecht in 1941, Arturo is simultaneously a satirical explanation of the rise of nationalism in Germany and a warning against allowing the events of the 1930s to repeat themselves. Any resemblance to living persons is entirely coincidental.

Little Mercy Callaghan has led a sheltered life. But her fugitive night with Weegee takes her from a four-alarm fire to a high society gala ... and a nightclub where the floor show isn’t the only entertainment. A hilarious romp from one of Canadian theatre’s truly original voices, Little Mercy’s First Murder celebrates an awakening to the world in all its seedy magnificence.

“A cautionary tale, historical parable and frighteningly apt mirror of our own current political landscape all in one cunning package.”

– Chicago Tribune

“Little Mercy’s First Murder is a sharp script...

The tunes are perfectly suited to the edge in Brebner’s sharp lyrics.”

– NOW Magazine

Jay Turvey

Bertolt Brecht

2017 | Shawfest.com

Morwyn Brebner

Paul Sportelli

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Interview with

a

By Jeff MacKay 2017 | 1.800.511.7429

Eda Holmes has picked a gothic thriller for her last production before departing for her new role as Artistic Director at Montreal’s Centaur Theatre Company later this summer.

T

he selection of Dracula, is one that Eda is excited to bring to the stage: “I loved the approach that adaptor Liz Lochhead took with the script. The play hearkens back to the original Bram Stoker story in many ways that other interpretations have failed to do.

At the same time she illuminates and expands on some key ideas in the story.” Eda goes on to explain: “The notion that men are afraid of women’s sexuality is very clear, as is the introduction of Van Helsing’s forgiveness for the things inside of us that are unacceptable to others — the things that we keep hidden.

Once you know about those things, can you forgive them in the ones that you love? That capacity to forgive is what makes mankind unique. It’s what makes us human.”

Eda has read heavily about the myth of Dracula and the character’s place in popular culture. Audiences will have their own preconceived notions of exactly who and what Dracula is before coming to see this play, and Eda is trying to embrace those notions and build upon them to help audiences feel that frisson of recognition.

Set and Costume Designer Michael Gianfrancesco has worked with Eda most recently on A Woman Of No Importance (2016). Eda praises Michael’s incredible costume taste and ability and explains how his amazing sense of the body, both as a costume designer and a set designer, works with Eda’s previous life as a dancer: “He has a way of using the shape of the space that he designs to enhance movement. He dresses the actor without overwhelming them.”

Costumes play a direct role in how characters are concealing themselves both literally and figuratively, as Eda explains: “In Dracula’s universe, keeping your neck covered is important for obvious reasons. It’s all about your neck and your shoulders and your torso.” She continues: “We’re staying in the Victorian era, but a high-fashioned notion of that. Dracula is going to bleed through several eras, looking at him as the poet Dracula or the sexy Dracula as opposed to the monster Dracula. We’re looking for a way to give him a timelessness with the idea that he’s been undead for generations. We also want him to change — that’s one of the qualities that we want to keep — the idea of Dracula as a shapeshifter.”

For the set design, Eda wanted Michael to creatively use minimal set construction to allow for freedom of set changes and atmospheric mood setting: “When you really study the story, you realize that most of the scenes take place in an asylum. They’re pretty horrific places but we focused on gathering period imagery that showcased asylums in history, with curtains that separate the beds, and built the set to utilize these dividers to quickly reconfigure the space in a number of different ways.”

A variety of curtains, including metal chains, white fabrics and plastic, will all be used to help establish locations, whether it be the “dirty, wet, asylum” or garden locations. Most of the surfaces will be able to showcase the projections of Cameron Davis, which will be integral to setting the atmosphere of the play.

Eda describes the importance that blood imagery will play, obviously key to any vampire story: “We started with a sheet of white paper, with two red dots on it. I just loved the image! We want to make it bleed, to blossom, and develop into things,” she explains. Scenery will utilize a variety of textures in the projections, including many visuals of the natural world.

Some set and prop elements incorporating the darker themes of the play include bones, chains, artistic interpretations of meat and skin, and perhaps even maggots, all used to create a sense of devouring or being devoured — depending on who the individual is of course. “Dracula is about control over his victims, and he will use any means at his disposal to see his victims succumb to his desires,” Eda says. “For example, the seduction of the character Harker starts with food the first time. A really bloody steak is both exciting and terrifying at the same time!”

Finally, to further enhance the audience’s fear, Eda has been working with sound designer John Gzowski to identify and exploit the audio frequency that affects people physically, and will be employing it in characters’ voices to literally raise the hair on the backs of their necks. “I’m going to do my best to truly scare everybody,” teases Eda. “And then, make you ponder your lives and the world afterwards.”

Clockwise from top: Natasha Mumba and Allan Louis; Graeme Somerville and Marla McLean; Allan Louis and Marla McLean; Moya O’Connell; Eda Holmes. Rehearsal photos by Christopher Wahl.

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CONVERSING THROUGH PHOTOGRAPHY There is a new look to our website and season brochures.

A big part of that is thanks to Canadian photographer Christopher Wahl. Christopher spent a few days in the Shaw Festival’s theatres last year — backstage, in dressing rooms and green rooms — capturing some intimate moments from behind the curtain.

Shawn Wright 2016 Engaged.

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On his career and how he got started.

My career started as a photojournalist, working for Toronto newspapers. I am a newsman at heart and always will be.

My focus now is portraiture, creating a definitive body of work of Canadians in my lifetime.

On his first visit to The Shaw and Niagara-on-the-Lake.

I enjoy the short drive to The Shaw. The town has a feel as if you’re on vacation, it truly does. The people-watching is a hoot, and don’t forget to look at the lake. Niagara-on-the-Lake has a real small town feel.

Some recent and upcoming projects This past winter I have been documenting hockey arenas in Southern Ontario. It sounds so fully Canadian it’s painful, but I’m interested in the venues that make up the Canadian identity of the game. The project started as I became a full-on hockey dad for my son. I’m “that guy” now, and I love it. This summer I will continue documenting the country from coast to coast.

Clockwise from top left: Julain Molnar, Patrick McManus, David Ball 2016 Our Town; Allan Louis 2016 “Master Harold” ... and the Boys; Barack Obama; Neil Young; Helen Mirren; David Schurmann 2016 Our Town; Christopher Wahl self-portrait with Marina Abramovitz; Kiera Sangster 2016 The Adventures of the Black Girl in her Search for God.

Some memorable projects I’ve been fortunate to meet some remarkable people over the years: politicians, actors, musicians and athletes. Some memorable sittings have been Neil Young or the incredible Jane Jacobs. My goal is that my pictures reflect my time spent with the subject. I just like making conversation. That’s the best part. The next gig is always the best one.

2017 | Shawfest.com

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News

Jackie Maxwell Studio Theatre Thanks to the generosity of an anonymous lead donor and the following individuals, the Studio Theatre has been renamed in Jackie Maxwell’s honour. Located in the Donald & Elaine Triggs Production Centre, this will be a tangible and lasting tribute to all that she accomplished in her 14 years as Artistic Director (2002 - 16), including making the dream of a Studio Theatre a reality.

1 anonymous gift Charles Balbach†† Lorne†† & Rosemary Barclay Robin Campbell & Peter Jewett†† Truly Carmichael & Tim Jennings

Carroll’s Carol Coming This Christmas Stephen Fry at The Shaw We welcomed Stephen Fry, celebrated writer, actor and adaptor of Me and My Girl, to the Festival in May. At this exclusive event for Friends and company members, it was revealed that Stephen will be returning to perform in our 2018 season!

Start a new annual holiday tradition by attending Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. This limited production will be held at the Royal George Theatre in Niagara-on-theLake, November 15 to December 23, and will feature 10 Shaw Festival ensemble members.

“I’ve adored A Christmas Carol all my life and staged it twice, but I’ve never had the chance to make it happen in such a Dickensian town and theatre,” stated Tim Carroll, who will direct the play. “It will be a Christmas treat to myself.”

Tickets can be ordered through the Shaw Festival Box Office at 1-800-511-SHAW, or online at shawfest.com.

Alberta G. Cefis†† Michael Eagen & Michele Darling† Richard†† & Darleen Falconer Wendy & Bruce Gitelman Roe Green Felda & Dena Hardymon Nathan & Marilyn Hayward Martha† & Tom†† Hyde Colleen†† & Brian Johnston Diane & James King Kingfisher Foundation Mona† & Harvey Levenstein Janet† & Bruce McKelvey Barbara Palk† & John Warwick† David & Daphne Pfaff Andrew†† & Valerie Pringle

Congratulations to Kate Hennig, our new Associate Artistic Director!

Open Rehearsals New this year: Friends were given access to “Open Rehearsals” between March and June. Each audience experienced the artistic process on an intimate scale such as: directors working with actors to establish a scene, or perhaps a musical number that included an audience sing-a-long!

This opportunity was a great way to introduce our Friends to Tim Carroll’s vision of “twoway theatre”: where the audience gets an opportunity to become more immersed.

Watch for a repeat of this opportunity in 2018.

Book early — the 2017 Open Rehearsals were full in a matter of days!

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Margaret A. Riggin †

Board Alumni

Current Board

††

Kate will be familiar to Shaw Festival fans as an actor – she appeared in When We Are Married (2014) and Ragtime (2010) among others. For 2017 she is featured in her other role as a writer with her adaptation of Wilde Tales.

Don’t forget ...

All ticket purchases include a 2-for-1 tour voucher for Peller Estates Winery and Trius Winery — a total $30 value!

Experience wine country!

Shaw Express Bus Rolling Another new feature exclusively for Shaw Festival ticket-buyers. Bus service is now available from the Royal York Hotel in Toronto! Visit shawfest.com to find the full schedule. Service runs from Thursday to Sunday for $25 round trip.

2017 | 1.800.511.7429

News

Secret Theatre An exciting new program has been created for our Friends (Members) for the 2017 season, under the direction of Tim Carroll, and to be totally honest, we can’t tell you too much about it! As the title suggests, it’s supposed to be a secret until you arrive at the event.

The only details we can share are some of the remaining dates: July 26 (Bernard Shaw’s Birthday), August 1, September 1 and October 1.

As some of these events are strictly limited in terms of space, only those who quickly sign up for events will be able to participate.

Supported by

Make sure you are on the email list so you get notifications for Secret Theatre!

Don’t hesitate when you get notification!

Friends can sign up by visiting shawfest.com, looking for Secret Theatre, or by calling 1.800.511.SHAW.

“We are thrilled to offer a warm welcome to our newest Governors Council members and Corporate supporters. Thank you!”

— Tim Carroll, Artistic Director and Tim Jennings, Executive Director As of June 1, 2017

Elaine Anderson

Nancy May

Robert & Loretta Barone

Cindy* & Derek Mewhinney

BeaLo Katz

Niagara Oast House Brewers

Peter & Suzanne Bland

Wanda & Jim Novinger

Bernard & Annette Braude

Outlet Collection at Niagara

Mark Callan* & Marion Rawson*

Mrs Janie Palmer

Tim Carroll* & Alexis Milligan*

Kevin†† & Jasmine Patterson

Dr George Corella & James Frankenpohl

Tom & Mary Powers

Critelli’s Fine Furniture

Andy Filardo & Beth Profit

Patricia & Robert Forsythe

Julian†† & Alice K. Rance

Michael I. Frangoulis Family

Dr Lynn Rosen & Bradley C. Rosen

Sheila Brown & Doug Guzman

Richard Russell & Thomas Quellette

Rob Haines U. E.

Robert & Marlene Savlov

Dr & Mrs Gerald Heasman

James & Marguerite Schellentrager

Gordon Hinch

Harry & Lillian Seymour

IBM

John Stanley & Helmut Reichenbacher

Jacob & Inge Iliohan

Diane Soubly

George & Zoya Jenks

Mark & Bettie Tullis

Ian†† & Rebecca Joseph

Upper Canada Animal Hospital

Pat & Jim Kehoe

Tom & Carmela Vert

Betty & Jamie Knight

Greg Virelli & Mario Vecci

Rudy & Rita Koehler

Chris & Lorayne Winn

Miriam Lee

Dr Harlan L. Lewis & Doris F. Wittenburg

LMC International Inc.

Writers Tears Copper Pot Irish Whiskey

Lee Valley

2 anonymous donors

Arnold Massey & Carole Cole

*Shaw Festival Company Member

2017 | Shawfest.com

TRAFALGAR — Authentic, Effortless and FUN! Trafalgar joined Shaw as the Official Travel Partner in 2015 and we are excited for our partnership this season. Like The Shaw, Trafalgar takes great pride in providing a superior patron experience. Their passion for providing patrons an insider’s look at a unique destination is unrivaled in the industry and part of the Trafalgar difference that you come to expect.

The backdrops to our 2017 productions spanning multiple continents creates endless inspiration. Travel to Britain in the comedic hit musical Me and My Girl and then with Trafalgar with our “Best of Britain” — immersing yourself in the years of history, culture and heritage. If Androcles and the Lion has you thinking about ancient Rome, Trafalgar’s “Rome Explorer” takes you inside the heart of this great city, including exclusive VIP access to the Vatican with an on-site dinner. Perhaps the culture and splendor of France is ignited in you viewing the remarkable tale of Saint Joan?

Trafalgar’s “Treasures of France” will whisk you from fairytale chateauxs to the chic capitol Paris. Wherever your imagination can take you, Trafalgar can assist you in finding your most memorable vacation!

The Shaw Festival brings worlds to life on its stages, and only Trafalgar brings your destinations to life while making it effortless! Every trip is planned with precision, passion and decades of expertise, to bring you the very best vacation. Trafalgar created the Insider Experiences, enabling guests to appreciate their destination through genuine local experiences, such as dining with locals in their homes. Enjoy and uncover moments that turn into memories and stories you cherish for a lifetime. We are proud to partner with a company that shares our desire to give our patrons a world-class experience, whether it be here in Niagaraon-the-Lake or the other side of the world.

Taking advantage of this exclusive offer is easy! Simply quote promo code PPTSHAWFEST18 for $100 off (per person) towards your next 2017/18 Trafalgar Guided Vacation. Call 1.800.352.4444 to speak with an experienced agent or visit trafalgar.com

Board Member

††

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I hope to meet many of you at these events – exclusively for you, our most loyal supporters.

— Tim Jennings, Executive Director

Friends Post-Show Chat/Reception (formerly called Wednesdays with Shaw)

Friends Day #2 – Musical Theatre from Shaw’s Lifetime

WEDNESDAYS AND THURSDAYS STARTING IN JUNE

SATURDAY JULY 8

Free.

Join Musical Director Paul Sportelli and special guests for an enlivening day of musical theatre and conversation. Includes lunch, a performance of Me and My Girl and a special post-show discussion. $190.

The Changeover SATURDAY JULY 8 AND SATURDAY AUGUST 19 Get comfortable in your seats following the Festival matinee of Me and My Girl or Dracula and behold as our production team transforms the stage for our evening performance. Free.

For Contributing Level ($400 and above) and Corporate Partners

Directors Project SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 23 Experience short plays directed by our Intern Directors. Free.

For Governors Council ($2000+)

Friends Day #3 – Michael Healey and Christopher Newton + 1979 SUNDAY OCTOBER 1 Dear Mr Newton: Sincerely, Michael Healey.

Experience a live reading of letters from actor/playwright Michael Healey to Shaw Artistic Director Emeritus Christopher Newton. Includes lunch, a performance of 1979, and an exclusive post-show discussion with Christopher Newton and Michael Healey. $160.

Tuesday Q & A An informal question-and-answer session with members of the Company.

Tuesday evenings after the performances except those marked P and O, in all four theatres. Free.

Supported by The Guarantee Company of North America

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2017 | 1.800.511.7429

2017 Ensemble Karl Ang

David Ball

Neil Barclay

Donna Belleville

Lisa Berry

Kyle Blair

Wade Bogert-O’Brien

Kristopher Bowman

Fiona Byrne

Benedict Campbell

Julia Course

Ryan Cunningham

Marion Day

Starr Domingue

Diana Donnelly

Sharry Flett

Kristi Frank

Patrick Galligan

Rebecca Gibian*

Élodie Gillett

Cameron Grant*

Martin Happer

Marci T. House

Jeff Irving

Patty Jamieson

Claire Jullien

Andrew Lawrie*

Allan Louis

Emily Lukasik*

Tom McCamus

Marla McLean

Patrick McManus

Jonah McIntosh*

Jeff Meadows

Jim Mezon

Peter Millard

Natasha Mumba*

Moya O’Connell

Sarena Parmar

Gray Powell

PJ Prudat

Chick Reid

Ric Reid

Cherissa Richards

Tara Rosling

Ben Sanders

Kiera Sangster

Vanessa Sears*

Travis Seetoo

André Sills

Graeme Somerville

Jeremiah Sparks

Steven Sutcliffe

Sanjay Talwar

Jonathan Tan

Jacqueline Thair

Michael Therriault

Sara Topham

Jay Turvey

Samantha Walkes*

Kelly Wong

Jenny L. Wright

Shawn Wright

*Supported by

2017 | Shawfest.com

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10 QUEEN’S PARADE, BOX 774 NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, ONTARIO L0S 1J0 CANADA SHAWFEST.COM

MAGAZINE FOR FRIENDS AND PARTNERS 2017

APRIL 5 - OCTOBER 15

1.800.511.SHAW

SHAWFEST.COM

Sharry Flett, Jeremiah Sparks, Travis Seetoo, Jonah McIntosh in 1837: The Farmers’ Revolt.

2017 | 1.800.511.7429