stratford seminar information package 2013

Monday, July 8 - Sunday, July 142013

PROGRAM INFORMATION PACKET

54 th McMaster StratfordShakespearean Seminar Series

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ALUMNI54th McMaster Stratford

Shakespearean Seminar Series

Dear Friends,

The 2012 year was one to remember at McMaster. We celebrated our 125th anniversary, our football team went to the Vanier Cup for the second year in a row and we had many wonderful events including one of my personal favorites – our Stratford Seminar Series.

We have many things to be excited about this year. The line-up of plays looks great and I think you will enjoy the selections. We will return to The Best Western where we will have our Monday night dinner as well as daily lunches. We will continue to give people the opportunity to enjoy the wonderful variety of cuisine in Stratford during most nights but will have dinners together as a group on Monday and Friday night. Friday night’s dinner will again be at the award-winning Church Restaurant.

This year all of our lectures will be at the Waterloo Stratford Campus. I am sure many of you noticed the construction happening on this building last year. There is elevator access and our lectures and discussion groups will be on the same floor of this beautiful, light-filled building. Its location across the street from The Best Western makes it a perfect choice for us.

Seminar highlights will again include: premium theatre tickets; lectures by theatre scholars; symposia with Festival actors, directors and staff; and the choice of weekday, weekend and weeklong packages. If you register for the weeklong package, you will get to see eight plays for the same price as seven plays last year so we hope you will consider the weeklong option.

We also have created a Facebook Page and invite all of you to visit and “like” the page. We will be posting content about our Seminar Series and from the Festival that we think you will find interesting. It is a great way to stay connected with the Series throughout the year.

In an effort to save postage costs, we will not be mailing out this information packet to participants who have provided us with their email address. Participants will be able to register on-line this year and you can visit alumni.mcmaster.ca for all of the details. If you would still like us to mail you a copy, just give us a call and we will be happy to send it to you.

A very special thanks to Dr. Graham Roebuck, our academic director, for his continued commitment to the program as well as insightful notes on this year’s program included in this package. I am confident that after reading Graham’s notes you will want to register for the series.

We are always happy to answer any of your questions. You can reach us by calling: 1-888-217-6003 or by email at [email protected].

Looking forward to seeing you in Stratford in July!

Karen McQuigge,Director, Alumni Advancement

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For more information on the performances, visit the Festival’s website at: http://www.stratfordfestival.ca/To register, go to: alumni.os.mcmaster.ca/StratfordSeminars

Itinerary

Date Time Performance Location Monday, July 8 2:00 pm- 5:45 pm Seminar registration The Parlour, Best Western

3:00 pm Backstage tour of The Festival Theatre – optional $8 pp The Festival Theatre

6:00 pm Welcome Reception followed by dinner The Parlour, Best Western

Tuesday, July 9 9:30 am Lecture: Mary Stuart Waterloo Stratford Campus 10:45 am Lecture: Blithe Spirit Waterloo Stratford Campus 12:00 pm Lunch The Parlour, Best Western 2:00 pm Mary Stuart Tom Patterson Theatre 8:00 pm Blithe Spirit Avon Theatre Wednesday, July 10 8:45 am Post-performance Discussion Waterloo Stratford Campus 9:30 am Lecture: Fiddler on the Roof Waterloo Stratford Campus 10:45 am Lecture: Romeo and Juliet Waterloo Stratford Campus 12:00 pm Lunch The Parlour, Best Western 2:00 pm Fiddler on the Roof Festival Theatre 8:00 pm Romeo and Juliet Festival Theatre Thursday, July 11 9:30 am Talking Theatre with Antoni Cimolino and Pat Quigley Tom Patterson Theatre 11:00 am General Interest Lecture Waterloo Stratford Campus 12:00 pm Lunch & Post Performance Discussion on Romeo & Juliet The Parlour, Best Western 8:00 pm Tommy – optional for everyone Avon Theatre Friday, July 12 9:00 am Registration weekend group (light refreshments provided) Waterloo Stratford Campus 9:30 am Lecture Waterloo Stratford Campus 10:45 am Lecture: Waiting for Godot Waterloo Stratford Campus 12:00 pm Lunch The Parlour, Best Western 2:00 pm Three Musketeers Festival Theatre 5:00 pm Dinner The Church Restaurant 8:00 pm Waiting for Godot Tom Patterson Theatre Saturday, July 13 8:45 am Post-Performance Discussion: Waiting for Godot Waterloo Stratford Campus 9:30 am Lecture: Measure for Measure Waterloo Stratford Campus 10:45 am Actor Discussion Groups Waterloo Stratford Campus

12:00 pm Lunch The Parlour, Best Western 2:00 pm Taking Shakespeare Studio Theatre 8:00 pm Measure for Measure Tom Patterson Theatre Sunday, July 14 9:00 am Post-performance Discussion on Measure for Measure

Continental Breakfast provided The Parlour, Best Western

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2013 Seminar Prices

The weekday price includes all Seminar activities Monday evening – Wednesday evening, two lunches, a welcome reception, dinner, and theatre tickets for four performances.

The weekend price includes all Seminar activities Friday morning – Sunday morning, two lunches, dinner on Friday night, and theatre tickets for four performances.

The weeklong price includes all Seminar activities Monday evening – Sunday morning, five lunches, a welcome reception, dinner on Monday night, dinner on Friday night, and theatre tickets for eight performances (one extra play than 2012).

MEALS

All of our lunches and Monday night dinner will be at The Parlour, Best Western, right in the heart of town. The Friday night dinner will be at The Church Restaurant. If you have any dietary needs, please let us know of such needs when you send in your registration form.

SEATING

All of the seats we are given from the Festival are top priced excluding Taking Shakespeare on Saturday afternoon. We have been promised the very best seats, despite continued intense demand for tickets in the coming season.

We attempt to provide a variety of seats for each member, and can usually accommodate special needs. Please let us know your particular requirements, such as Hearing Assistance Receivers, or your wish to be seated with particular friends. These requests must accompany your registration form.

Program Details McMaster Alumni Receive

$50 CREDITtoward program

WEEKDAY SEMINAR$663 CDN$86 HST

$749 CDN

WEEKEND SEMINAR$707 CDN$92 HST

$799 CDN

WEEKLONG SEMINAR$1061 CDN$138 HST

$1199 CDN

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It is a special pleasure to introduce, and invite you to join, the McMaster Stratford Shakespeare Seminar of 2013 -- number fifty-four in our unbroken sequence. This is the Festival’s sixty-first season.

“Special pleasure” is not an idle pleasantry. Stratford has taken a new and exciting turn masterminded by Antoni Cimolino, the newly appointed Artistic Director. A brilliant director (recall 2012 Cymbeline, for instance), a twenty-five year plus veteran of Stratford, who, understanding the “uniquely compelling power of the spoken word” in a visually oriented culture, vows to “put the actor and the text firmly at the centre” of the Festival. Consult the Festival brochure for the array of new events, symposia, and conversations that flow from the world of ideas opened on Stratford’s stages. These are Mr. Cimolino’s welcome initiatives to extend Stratford’s role as a centre of intellectual and artistic energy. In this re-vitalised Stratford we are thoroughly at home.

At home in 2013 also means in our new venue -- the beautiful new building of the University of Waterloo, adjacent to the Parlour where we take our meals. There are so many fine things about it, not to be described in these notes. You will love it! Two of the four Shakespeare plays to be staged in 2013 are available in our week: Romeo and Juliet and Measure for Measure. On the Festival Theatre stage, R & J’s star-crossed lovers are the incomparable Sara Topham and, making his debut, Daniel Brière, a recent graduate of the National Theatre School. Directed by Tim Carroll in his second season, the production boasts a very strong assembly of Jonathan Goad (Mercutio), Kate Hennig (Nurse), Tom McCamus (Friar Laurence) and Scott Wentworth (Capulet). Also making her Stratford debut is Nehassaiu deGennes as Lady Capulet. Fights are designed by the master of the genre, John Stead and the set by Doug Paraschuk, likewise a master.

The story of these most famous lovers was well known in several literary forms, in several languages, before Shakespeare took it up. The illicit 1597 quarto, several years after the play’s probable date of composition, describes the play as “An excellent conceited [clever, ingenious] tragedy.” Indeed, what Shakespeare brings to the story – that everybody already knew -- is his astonishing verbal invention, his “conceit.” It has never lacked admirers or audiences. Dr.

Notes from Academic Director

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Notes from Academic Director (continued)

Johnson thought it “one of the most pleasing” of plays, adding, however, that “the catastrophe is irresistibly affecting” and the action carried out with “such congruity as tragedy requires.” A Johnsonian judgement that stands the test of time.

“O what may man within him hide, / Though angel on the outward side!” So many things, hidden or locked away, are eventually prised open in Measure for Measure. This wonderful play is full of riches – highly wrought emotional confrontations, meditations on life and death, discourses on government and its abuses, memorable low-life comedy, flawed humanity at all levels of society, yet all driven with a passionate desire of remedies for our ills. Shakespeare at the top of his form on the human condition.

As with R & J, Shakespeare takes a well-known story – in this case, that of the corrupt magistrate – and treats it to the full power of his poetic invention, compressing what he found in earlier texts into the central, sharply delineated, moral dilemma from which the only escape seems to be death. How Duke Vincentio resolves matters, applying his “craft against vice,” has worried many and given rise to vigorous debate. What kind of play is it? A comedy? Problem play? Tragi-comedy? Satire? What does it say now? Martha Henry directs this production on the Tom Patterson Stage with a cast well up to the challenges in prospect. Tom Rooney plays Angelo, Carmen Grant, in her second season has the very demanding role of Isabella, Stephen Ouimette is Lucio and Geraint Wyn Davies is the Duke. The delicious comic roles of Pompey, Mistress Overdone and Elbow are taken by Randy Hughson, Patricia Collins and Brian Tree.

Classic German theatre has been unrepresented at Stratford. Antoni Cimolino redresses that lacuna with Mary Stuart, which he himself will direct on the Tom Patterson stage. Friedrich von Schiller’s play, first staged in 1800, was a huge success, not least with the English Romantics for whom Schiller was a fellow spirit and inspiration. Coleridge, translator of important works by Schiller, wrote a sonnet to him on the appearance of The Robbers in 1781, which pronounces him “tremendous in sublimity” – the highest praise in the Romantic lexicon. With Goethe and Herder, Schiller was at the forefront of the “Sturm und Drang” [Storm and Stress] movement in Germany, writing highly charged dramas of individuals faced with dreadful choices and imbued with fervent and tragic ideals. The German literati held Shakespeare in high regard.

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Mary Stuart dramatizes the power struggle in the court of Elizabeth I posed by the existence of her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, and the Catholic threat she represents to Elizabeth’s Protestant establishment. The play picks up the final stage of this story with Mary in prison, her fate seemingly in Elizabeth’s hands. Schiller sets it in the context of the swirling ambitions of the high politics of the era. He creates a personal confrontation of the two queens – high drama, if not quite as it happened.

Who better to play those regal figures than Lucy Peacock (Mary) and Seana McKenna (Elizabeth)! The supporting cast is star-studded: Ben Carlson, Brian Dennehy, Geraint Wyn Davies, James Blendick to name just five.

Shakespeare is central to the two-hander by John Murrell, starring Martha Henry and Luke Humphrey: Taking Shakespeare. Murrell, an all-round man of theatre and opera and a respected poet, was the first “Prof” when his play – the first he has written in a dozen years -- premiered in Calgary. He had intended the part for a female, and here, at Stratford, restored to his intention, it becomes the role of Martha Henry. She is an aging, jaded professor in an obscure university where she has been far too long. She is obliged to tutor Murph, the son of the college president, in Shakespeare, because the young man, with no inclination to study anything, is failing his English course. Not exactly the marriage of true minds, but when they come together over the text of Othello something unlooked for happens. Murrell chose Othello for this task because it is “the most beautiful of the plays in terms of poetry, and the most difficult.” The director, Diana Leblanc, returns to Stratford where she has previously directed well-received Shakespeare plays. The Studio Theatre is the venue, its intimacy well suited to the dimensions of the play.

The Three Musketeers, while not Sturm und Drang, has romantic credentials, and, like Mary Stuart, is immersed in the intrigue of the late Renaissance world, specifically that associated with Cardinal Richelieu. Alexandre Dumas père (1802-70) wrote the novel on which the play is based (adapted for the stage by Peter Raby) in 1844-5, the same year that saw his The Count of Monte Cristo. He subsequently wrote two sequels about D’Artagnan whose character Dumas based on a Gascon gentleman, a captain of the King’s Musketeers, who was killed at the siege of Maastricht in 1673. Although Dumas was interested in English and French history of the

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seventeenth century, and draws on real historical figures, the events of the story are exuberant romantic fiction – which is the charm of the show.

Fights are directed by John Stead and the show by veteran director Miles Potter. Luke Humphrey, not having to knuckle down here to his Shakespeare text, is D’Artagnan and his three companions, Athos, Aramis and Porthos are played by Graham Abbey, Mike Shara and Jonathan Goad – all Stratford favourites, as are Deborah Hay (Milady de Winter) and Bethany Jillard (Constance). Stephen Sutcliffe, known for his stage work at the Shaw Festival, plays the villain, that eminence rouge, Richelieu.

Noël Coward wrote Blithe Spirit in 1941, the darkest days for Britain in World War II, as an escapist entertainment. With “dismal clairvoyance” he saw the war coming, but with characteristic insouciance he refused to banish his comic muse. After dealing with actors’ volatile egos, there was “nothing but the destruction of civilization to worry about.” Borrowing Shelley’s line, “Hail to thee, blithe Spirit” (“To a Skylark”, 1820), Coward took a subject that could have been treated in a much darker way: spiritualism. As in The Great War and its aftermath, there was an upsurge of yearning to get in touch with the recently dead – a possibility that spiritualism offered. Instead, Coward provides a funny and elegant treatment of marriage and its discontents, his familiar territory.

Coward was vehemently criticized for his brittle sophistication – an offence against the wartime mentality. Critics announced that his brief triumph in the theatrical world was over and that his failure to wrestle with social issues made him irrelevant. They were, of course, wrong.

There is no finer interpreter of Coward than Brian Bedford who has a first rate cast to work with. Ben Carlson is Charles Condomine, a novelist, the ghost of his late wife, Elvira, is played by Michelle Giroux, making a welcome return to Stratford, and his current wife, Ruth, is played by Sarah Topham. Madame Arcati, the medium, played in the original production by Margaret Rutherford, is Seana McKenna. Samuel Beckett’s response to the misery of the modern world could scarcely be more different from Blithe Spirit, nor did it appeal to Coward who disliked what he called the “pretentious symbolism” of Waiting for Godot. Yet Godot, despite mystifying many audiences and critics, has come to be

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regarded as the greatest play of the twentieth century, and no less apposite today than when, as En attendant Godot it opened in Paris at the suitably named Théâtre de Babylone in January, 1953. Beckett came to prefer writing in French. The English version was not staged until 1955 in London and soon after in Miami, where it quickly folded, perhaps because it was billed as the “Laugh sensation of two continents.” Beckett was named “old misery-guts” in the prestigious Times Literary Supplement, and the impression that he was a nihilistic misanthropist stuck. Yet after many productions, Beckett’s unique, withering wit and humour have come to be appreciated as essential currency of the modern sensibility. A world without Godot is now unthinkable. The Nobel Prize citation for Beckett praises his “body of work that has transmuted the destitution of modern man into his exaltation.” Bring on the angst.

The Tom Patterson stage is the venue for Jennifer Taver’s production. The cast is Stephen Ouimette and Tom Rooney as Estragon and Vladimir with Brian Dennehy and Randy Hughson as Pozzo and Lucky. Beckett makes huge demands of his actors. This superb cast is up to the challenge.

Fiddler on the Roof was staged with great success at Stratford for the first time a dozen years ago. This new production, again on the Festival Theatre stage, is eagerly anticipated. The book is based on the original story of Sholem Aleichem, whose prodigious oeuvre in Yiddish did so much – indeed he was the leading light of the enterprise – to establish Yiddish as a literary language. Aleichem was the pen name of Solomon Rabinovitz, 1859-1916. He lived the life of the shtetl that the show dramatizes, as well as life as an intellectual in the city, and he experienced the horror of pogroms that drove his family from their home to settle, finally, in New York City. These experiences underpin the story. Although he wrote also in Russian, it is the Yiddish-language stories about Tevye that are best remembered.

Fiddler, memorable not least for the music of Jerry Bock and the lyrics of Sheldon Harnick, has its dark side – the heart-wrenching tensions that assail the family of Golde (Kate Hennig) and Tevye (Scott Wentworth). Their daughters are played by Jacquelyn French, Keely Hutton, Gabrielle Jones and, as Tzeitel, Jennifer Stewart. The cast also includes Andre Morin, who makes his debut, and Mike Nadajewski and Paul Nolan, admired performers of musical theatre. The direction and


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choreography is by Donna Feore and the musical direction is by Shelley Hanson.

The other musical theatre of the 2013 season is Tommy. This show has enjoyed tremendous box office success for two decades. Des McAnuff, who co-wrote the book with Pete Townshend, was awarded a Tony in 1993. It’s the story of a “miracle” in which a young man who is deprived of both sight and speech as a result of his childhood experiences, is recognized as a prodigious talent at the game of pinball. What ensues from this situation is the driving force of the show.

The stars are very fine performers. Jewell Blackman and Paul Nolan have strongly established their credentials in musical theatre and held recent Stratford audiences in thrall. Appropriately, Des McAnuff directs the production.

So much to look forward to in 2013! With all good wishes for the New Year,

Graham RoebuckAcademic Director

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Accommodations

You are responsible for booking your own accommodations; they are all on a first-come first-served basis. For your convenience, we have made group bookings at the The Best Western, in the heart of town, where we will have daily lunches. To reserve a room, call the hotel: 1.877.728.4036. Please make sure you say you are part of the “McMaster Group” for the discounted rate.

You may also visit the Festival’s website, www.stratfordfestival.ca/visitor, for other housing options. You can also call the Festival’s Accommodation booking service at: 519.273.1600 or toll free at 1-800-567-1600.

Online Registration

Please note: $100 deposit to secure your registration is non-refundable. Online registrations must be paid in full. If you wish to make a $100 deposit with the balance due by June 1, 2013 please mail or fax form.

Participant Contact Information

First Name Last Name Address City Province/State Zip/Postal Code Country Home Phone Email Address Registration Information

WEEKLONG Seminar…………………………………………………….. ____________ To add lunches with the group on Tuesday through Saturday add $100 _____________

WEEKDAY Seminar ……………………………………………………..

____________

To add lunches with the group on Tuesday and Wednesday

add $40

_____________

WEEKEND Seminar……………………………………………………..

____________

To add lunches with the group on Friday and Saturday

add $40

_____________

OPTIONAL Show for everyone –

**

add $127.12

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** Please note there is a limited number of tickets

I require a hearing device for all performances add $2 per show _____________

I am a McMaster Alumnus/a

deduct $50

_____________

TOTAL

=

_____________

Enclosed is a cheque/Visa/MasterCard/American Express for $100 for my non-refundable deposit fee.

Enclosed is a cheque/Visa/MasterCard/American Express to cover my total Seminar fee.

Please make cheques payable to McMaster University and in Canadian funds

Credit Information (if applicable)

Visa MasterCard American Express Card #: Expiry Date: Signature of Card Holder:

Additional Information This is my first time participating in the McMaster Theatre Seminar I would like to sit with I have special dietary requirements

Please specify: McMaster Contact Information

Office of Alumni Advancement, McMaster University, Alumni House 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, ON L8S 4K1, Canada 1-888-217-6003 [email protected]

The information gathered on this form is collected under the authority of the McMaster University Act, 1976. The information is used for the academic, administrative, financial and statistical purposes of the University including, but not limited to, registration and maintaining records; provision of student services, including access to information systems; and disclosure to or on behalf of the applicable McMaster student government. This information is protected and is being collected under section 39(2) and section 42 of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act of Ontario (RSO 1990). Questions regarding the collection or use of this personal information should be directed to the University Secretariat, Gilmour Hall, room 210, McMaster University.

$809 CDN

Tommy – Thurs. July 11, 8 p.m.

$1099 CDN

$709 CDN

Backstage tour of Festival Theatre - Mon. July 8, 3:00 p.m. * add $8 _____________

* Space is limited

SUB-TOTAL =

_____________

DEPOSIT

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Stratford SeminarsFax #: 905.524.1733

stratford seminar information package 2013

Documents

stratford seminar series

seminar highlights

pm seminar registration

best western

years program

waterloo stratford campus

weeklong packages

night dinner