In this episode, co-host Marlis Schweitzer considers how the enduring popularity of Shakespeare in the Park and other forms of outdoor Shakespeare continues to guide how Canadians see, hear, and experience Shakespeare. After a short summary of the “open air” movement, which celebrated the virtues of producing Shakespeare outdoors, she speaks with several guests, including the artistic leadership of Toronto’s Shakespeare in the Ruff, about the importance of outdoor Shakespeare today. The second half of the episode focuses more directly on the legacy of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, a company that began producing Shakespeare outdoors - in a tent - and is now arguably the most dominant theatre company in Canada. The episode concludes with a conversation with Melissa Poll, the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion dramaturge at Vancouver's Bard on the Beach, interspersed with comments from Cole Alvis, a two-Spirit Michif Metis actor and director, and now casting associate with the Stratford Festival.

This episode features conversations with Patricia Allison, Cole Alvis, Raoul Bhaneja, Karen Fricker, Christine Horne, Erin Kelly, Peter Kuling, Anita La Selva, Keira Loughran, Elizabeth Pentland, Melissa Poll, PJ Prudat, Jamie Robinson, Nassim Abu Sarari, Sara Topham, Jeff Yung

Episode 4 ASL translation courtesy of Dawn Jani Birley. Interpretation by Dawn Jani Birley, Robert Haughton, Sage Lovell, and Alice Lo.

Content note: This episode contains discussion of potlatch bans, colonialism, white supremacy, and racism. Listener discretion advised.

Here are some links to things discussed in the episode and some suggestions for further reading:

Sheldon Cheney, The Open-Air Theatre (1918)

The Potlatch Ban, from The Canadian Encyclopedia 

Some outdoor theatre companies: Bard on the Beach, Greater Victoria Shakespeare Festival, Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan, Shakespeare in the Ruins, Shakespeare in the Ruff, Dream in High Park, Shakespeare in the Park, Bard in the Barracks, Shakespeare by the Sea (Halifax), Shakespeare by the Sea Festival (St. John’s)

Stratford Festival timeline

Morten Parker’s Oscar-nominated 1953 documentary, The Stratford Adventure, produced by the National Film Board of Canada

Ian Rae, “The Stratford Festival and Canadian Cultural Nationalism,” from The Oxford Handbook of Canadian Literature, ed. Cynthia Conchita Sugars (2016)

Glossary definition and additional resources on the #inthedressingroom conversation

Bard on the Beach’s Company Commitments

“Ndo-Mshkawgaabwimi - We all are standing strong,” a video with “stories of endurance, resistance and resilience” told by members of the Indigenous Circle at Stratford (2020)