The Stratford Festival has finished its 2006 season with a small surplus but on a creative high, according to general director Antoni Cimolino.
This year, the company’s theatrical highlights included a production of Molière’s Don Juan performed both in English and French, as well as the staging of Djanet Sears’s Harlem Duet — the first play in the festival’s history written and directed by an African Canadian woman, organizers said in a statement released Friday.
According to Cimolino, the festival had a 2006 budget of nearly $53 million and posted a small surplus of $19,736 — the company’s 13th consecutive surplus, but a smaller one than in previous years.
The box office also slipped: the 528,373 tickets sold was down from last year’s attendance of nearly 540,000 and the almost 570,000 tickets sold in 2004.
The festival has yet to surpass the 600,000 attendance mark since 2003, a year that saw the SARS crisis, the blackout and the start of the war in Iraq.
Attracting U.S. visitors proved a continuing challenge for the Shakespearean theatre festival, however, “donations from our American patrons were at a record high,” Cimolino added.
“Our core U.S. audience is standing by us like never before.”
Monette’s finale: ‘exciting and diverse’
The festival also reported that it has already sold $6.6 million worth of tickets for the upcoming 55th season, which will mark Richard Monette’s finale as artistic director.
“His final season is going to be as exciting and diverse as the 13 that came before it. We are looking forward to a year-long celebration of Richard’s tenure and so are our patrons,” Cimolino concluded.
Monette announced in February 2005 that he would retire at the end of 2007. At the end of his tenure, he will have been the longest-serving artistic director in the festival’s history.
Theatre veterans Des McAnuff, Marti Maraden and Don Shipley will work with Monette next season to prepare for their new posts as the Shakespearean festival’s new artistic leaders.
The three will officially take over programming for the 2008 season and report to Cimolino, himself a former Stratford actor and director.
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