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Art is True North

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Antoni Cimolino on Stratford Festival 2025

Antoni Cimolino, Artist Director Stratford Festival

INTERVIEW ─ “The great thing about theatre is that you get to watch terrible things happen, but do it safely and within a jungle gym for the mind.”

Words and Interview by Michael Zarathus-Cook

ISSUE 15 | STRATFORD | FOURTH WALL


When it comes to curating the biggest theatre festival in Canada, running out of ideas is not an option. As an artistic director, your curiosity is your bullion, and it’s the only type of currency that you accumulate only by spending. Antoni Cimolino has been spending his store of curiosity as Artistic Director of Stratford Festival since 2013 and, after 38 years in association with this company, Cimolino will be stepping down from this role at the end of the 2026 season. There is a long list of reasons to step away from a demanding role such as his,  but running out of ideas for programming is far from the case with Cimolino.  Speaking with Cannopy about the 2025 Stratford Festival, it’s hard to believe that this is the same man that will be leaving this role next year. His vision for what this Festival can achieve, and the imprint that theatre can leave on the audience, seems as fervent as a newcomer chest-thumping on his first day on the job. Likewise, a brief glance at the programming for 2025 looks like that of a company on the cusp of going mainstream rather than the over 70-year-old institution that Stratford Festival has become. The Programming for this season takes enough chances to attract newcomers, while raising the Baseline of expectations enough to keep seasoned patrons curiously engaged.

Stratford Festival 2025. Photos by Ted Belton.


One of the seemingly ineluctable modes of thinking that come out of large institutions such as this is the habit of resting on your laurels and believing that the reams of donor dollars and operational funding are a substitute for true audience engagement. This mode of thinking does very little for crafting a truly interesting compilation of works that make up a season. To retain audience interest, you need to swing for the fences, and in order to do that it helps to at least pretend this is the only shot you’re going to get. Stratford 2025 indeed swings for the fences. Take something as run-of-the-mill as staging Macbeth, the formula for success is crystal clear: hire great actors, good directors, and stage it as infrequently as possible. The last variable of this equation is perhaps the most crucial one, because it means that, ceteris paribus, the audience will be happy enough just to see Macbeth and willing to forgive everything else. Despite checking off these boxes—the last time that Stratford staged Macbeth was in 2016, directed by Cimolino and starring Ian Lake—this 2025 production goes for the high-hanging fruits by reimagining the Shakespearean classic in the context of biker-gang culture. That's just one glimpse of acrobatic programming that Cimolino has prepared for Stratford 2025. Joining Cannopy from Stratford, Ontario, Cimolino traces several strands of inspiration throughout a season that's shaping up to be a tug-o-war between meeting and defying expectation.






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