The following post is by Laurie Sandretto ’16, an English major. Sandretto used her AMS grant to attend the McMaster Stratford Shakespearean Summer Series in Stratford, Ontario.
Photo of Romeo and Juliet performed at the festival in 2013. Taken by Kelly Bedard, My Entertainment World contributor.
As an English major, I don’t do all that much research. So, when looking for an opportunity to use my grant, I was happy to find the McMaster Stratford Shakespearean Summer Series, which I attended last July. Hosted by McMaster University, this is a weeklong program based in Stratford, Ontario, to attend many of the plays and musicals performed in the Stratford Festival. The Stratford Festival is an annual event in Stratford, Ontario. When it was founded in 1953, it was based solely on Shakespeare, but it has become a much wider event.
When I arrived, I was surprised to discover that I was noticeably younger than anyone else there. Although the seminar is hosted by McMaster University, it is part of their alumni outreach program. The other participants were all retirees who had been attending for many years together; the record was held by one man who was coming for his thirty-ninth year. Their experience at the festival gave me access to background information about the plays and the festival itself that I would not have had otherwise. They could compare this season’s plays and actors with those performed and performing decades back, and, although a lot of it went over my head, I could at least appreciate how much history was associated with the festival and the plays themselves.
The seminar itself lasted for five days. Each morning, we would meet and attend lectures about the upcoming plays. Only four of the summer’s thirteen programs were Shakespeare; the rest were by other authors and connected by a common theme, that of discovery. Some of the plays were rather more obscure than others; one was actually a new English translation of a play originally in German. Afterwards, we would attend two plays, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. Although thirteen plays were performed over the course of the season, their premieres were spread out over several months, and only ten had begun in early July. The Festival uses four theaters, each shaped differently. I was used to only seeing the traditional theater, so it was interesting to see how much the stage shape affected the performance.
The Festival itself also provided some opportunities for us. Every week, they held question and answer sessions with people working behind the scenes on the shows. Our seminar had two direct question and answer sessions with the actors, one at the beginning of the week and one at the end. Additionally, after the seminar proper had ended, I was able to take a behind-the-scenes tour of the largest theater, which provided a lot of information about all the work that goes into getting the plays ready for the actors to begin.
Overall, I enjoyed myself immensely and did learn a lot at the Festival and the Seminar. Both are annual events, so anyone interested in attending can find more information online.