RHODcast: Aug 27, 2020

The Festival Will Be Back – Antoni Cimolino

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Between 1603 and 1613, writes Andrew Dickson in The Guardian, the Globe and other London playhouses were shut for an astonishing total of 78 months because of plague. As if that’s of any comfort to Antoni Cimolino, the artistic director of North America’s biggest classical repertory theatre company, the Stratford Festival in beautiful Stratford, Ontario.

Antoni’s conversation ranges from a historical introduction to the festival and the Falstaff-sized role played by its founder, the radical British director Sir Tyrone Guthrie, to the challenge of managing a $60m Canadian budget when there is no income whatsoever from bums on over 3000 seats. Listen for a walk-on part by the great Canadian heart-throb Mike Shara playing Berowne in the company’s truly excellent production of Love’s Labours Lost, an important part of their survival strategy now that more than half of Stratford’s Shakespeare canon is available on video.

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