Curtain rises on Antoni Cimolino’s last season at Stratford Festival

The curtain officially rose on the 74th season of the Stratford Festival Monday night. CTV's Jeff Pickel takes us inside the celebration.

The sun shone as the stars of Stratford Festival gathered to celebrate the opening of the iconic theatre’s 74^th season.

Over the next six days, seven productions will hit the stage; The Hobbit, Othello, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Guys and Dolls, Death of a Salesman, Something Rotten, The Importance of Being Earnest and Waiting for Godot.

Later this season, audiences will be able to catch performances of The Tao of the World, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and The King James Bible Play.

Luck certainly decided to be a lady on Monday as the beautiful weather played a starring role while the casts of the shows hit the red carpet in Stratford, Ont.

Dan Chameroy, a familiar face on the Stratford stage, will be appearing in both Guys and Dolls and Something Rotten this season.

In Guys and Dolls, he’ll be starring as high-roller Sky Masterson.

“It’s song and dance, it’s Guys and Dolls, it’s one of the great classic musicals and we’re just really happy to present it,” he told CTV News. “I’m going to bring my spin to it, hopefully people enjoy it and we open tomorrow which is crazy and exciting because we’ve been going at it for a while now.”

Meanwhile, he’ll be portraying Nostradamus in Something Rotten.

Sometimes, he’ll be taking on both roles in the same day.

“You just have to pace yourself,” Chameroy explained. “Try to find somewhere to rest in between there. They require different vocal demands, so I just have to try to chill out when I have an opportunity to do that. But I’m very excited to do Rotten again and play these really wonderful parts.”

Donna Feore has also taken on the challenge of directing both shows.

“Both of these shows are fantastic musicals, and so different,” she said. “Guys and Dolls is a classic, which can be reinvented over and over again; big huge production numbers in that show. Both shows are musical comedies and so Something Rotten is crazy. I call Something Rotten – we did it two years ago and I brought it back, and we’re calling it ‘Extra Rotten.’”

Antoni Cimolino’s final season

Along with the elation comes a fond farewell. This will be longtime artistic director Antoni Cimolino’s last season with Stratford Festival after spending 14 years in the role.

He started his time in Stratford as an actor in 1988 and began directing in the mid-1990s.

“It’s a life change,” he reflected on Monday. “It’s been 39 years that I’ve been at the Festival and doing these opening nights. I’m going to miss it terribly but I’m also curious about what happens at this time of May if I’m not here, so that’ll be fun.”

Cimolino has been through good times and tough times for the performing arts. Like many artistic institutions, the pandemic hit the theatre particularly hard, but Stratford Festival has battled back.

“It means the world to me,” Cimolino said about the theatre’s recent success. “Last year we managed to sell more tickets than we did in 2019, pre-pandemic, and I could see that we’re on a good footing. We’re going in a good direction, and so I feel like I can hand off this precious, precious place to the next artistic director in good stead.”

This season he will be directing Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Eduardo De Filippo’s Saturday, Sunday, Monday, which was adapted for the stage by Cimolino and Donato Santeramo.

He previously said the plays chosen this year are some of his favourites and hold deep personal meaning.