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Frontmezzjunkies is Thrilled to be at the Opening Week of the Stratford Festival Canada

Steve Ross as Albin playing Zaza (left) and Starr Domingue as Jacqueline in La Cage aux Folles. Stratford Festival 2024. Photo: David Hou.

The Canadian Theatre Report: Opening Week at the Stratford Festival

By Ross

It’s May 27, 2024, and frontmezzjunkies has arrived for the Stratford Festival’s 72nd season which launches officially tonight with the opening of the first six of 2024’s 12 productions. Tonight, the excitement gets underway with the opening of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night on the famed Festival Theatre stage at 7:30 p.m. And these theatre junkies can not wait.

Following the opening of Twelfth Night, each subsequent evening will see another big opening celebration with Tuesday evening seeing the opening of the Tony-winning musical Something Rotten! also at the Festival Theatre. On Wednesday the lovely Tom Patterson Theatre will officially open for the season Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, followed by Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler on Thursday. Then it will be over to the sweet proscenium Avon Theatre for the opening of the hit musical La Cage aux Folles on Friday. The grand and wonderful Opening Week will come to a close on Saturday with the opening of Romeo and Juliet at the Festival Theatre. 

Six more shows will open later in the season: Wendy and Peter Pan, The Goat or, Who Is Sylvia, Get That Hope, London Assurance, Salesman in China, and The Diviners. All by one I will be happily and gratefully being given the chance to see and write about.

Further details of #SFOpeningWeek, including run times, are below:

Jessica B Hill, Startford’s Twelfth Night. Photography by Ted Belton.

Monday, May 27

7:30 p.m. Twelfth Night

Festival Theatre, 55 Queen Street

Run Time 2:51

Red carpet timing:

6 p.m. Red Carpet begins

6:30 p.m. Stratford Police Pipes and Drums parade to the Festival Theatre

7:10 p.m. Grass Dance by Chris Mejaki, accompanied by traditional drummers led by Scott Stevens

7:30 p.m. Performance begins

10:30 p.m. After party in the lobby

Jeff Lillico, Stratford’s Something Rotten. Photography by Ted Belton.

Tuesday, May 28

8 p.m. Something Rotten!

Festival Theatre, 55 Queen Street

Run Time 2:40

Allison Edwards Crewe (front) and Lucy Peacock, Stratford’s Cymbeline. Photography by Ted Belton.

Wednesday, May 29

8 p.m. Cymbeline

Tom Patterson Theatre, 111 Lakeside Drive

Run Time: 3:03

Sara Topham, Stratford’s Hedda Gabler. Photography by Ted Belton.

Thursday, May 30

8 p.m. Hedda Gabler

Tom Patterson Theatre, 111 Lakeside Drive

Run Time: 1:58

Steve Ross (left) and Sean Arbuckle, Startford’s La Cage aux Folles. Photography by Ted Belton.

Friday, May 31

8 p.m. La Cage aux Folles

Avon Theatre, 99 Downie Street

Run Time: 2:55

Vanessa Sears, Stratford’s Romeo and Juliet. Photography by Ted Belton.

Saturday, June 1

8 p.m. Romeo and Juliet

Festival Theatre, 55 Queen Street

Run Time 2:48

Jonathan Mason as Romeo and Vanessa Sears as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet. Stratford Festival 2024. Photo: David Hou.

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