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Taking in a production – or the whole season – at Ontario’s renowned Stratford and Shaw Festivals is a long-standing summer tradition and an annual highlight for lovers of classical theatre. As autumn approaches, both fests are still going strong, with York talent lighting up their iconic stages.
Theatre alumni treading the boards at the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake include Patrick Galligan (MFA ‘98), appearing as the British Foreign Secretary in John Murrell’s Peace in Our Time: A Comedy and as the charming philanderer Frederick Arnott in Matthew Barber’s Enchanted April. Now in his tenth season with the Shaw, Galligan’s performance credits include film, television, radio and dozens of shows on 
major stages across Canada, most recently the Mirvish production of War Horse in Toronto.
The cast of Lady Windermere’s Fan on York Professor Teresa Przybylski’s radiant set. Photo by Emily Cooper
Dora Award-winner Tara Rosling (BFA ’93) shares the stage with Galligan in Enchanted April, playing his unhappy wife, Rose Arnott. She also appears as the mysterious and glamorous Mrs. Erlynne in Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan, her performance labelled “simply exquisite” by the Toronto Star.
Hot on the heels of her triumphant turn as Celimene in Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s The School for Lies, Deborah Hay (BFA’95) is in her fifth season at the Stratford Festival, where she plays the role of the wicked Milady de Winter in Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers and the steadfast Emilia in Shakespeare’s Othello. “Deborah Hay is a brilliant Emilia, building the role so superbly, so beautifully,” said the Hamilton Spectator.
Deborah Hay (left) as Emilia and Bethany Jillard as Desdemona in Othello. Photo by Michael Cooper
Supporting the onstage talent is the formidable creative talent in the production teams, where York designers abound.
York music alumnus Thomas Ryder Payne (BA ‘95) is the composer and sound designer for Stratford’s Othello, contributing “a subtle soundscape and a spine-tingling score” (The Globe and Mail). Gillian Gallow (BFA ’04) designed the costumes for The Three Musketeers and Dana Osborne(BFA ’96) is the costume designer for Stratford’s Fiddler on the Roof. Michelle Ramsay (BFA ’97) designed the lighting for Arcadia at the Shaw Festival, and Charlotte Dean (BFA ’80) did double duty with costume designs for The Merchant of Venice at Stratford and Our Betters at the Shaw.
Theatre Professor Teresa Przybylski,a veteran designer for Stratford, Shaw and many other leading Canadian stages, has earned raves for her work at both festivals this season. She designed the set and costumes for Waiting for Godot at Stratford’s Tom Patterson Theatre, and sets for Lady Windermere's Fan at the Shaw Festival Theatre.
Przybylski dubs Samuel Beckett’s absurdist comedy Waiting for Godot her “most favourite play ever”. Her costumes for the show connect a number of fashion periods with modern clothing references. Her inventive set features a metallic tree, a clockwork sun and a long, winding road literally suspended above the stage, conjuring “the kind of space, both literal and figurative, that symbolizes the constraints of [the characters’] existence (The Beat Magazine).
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Tom Rooney (as Vladimir) wears Teresa Przybylski’s costume designs in Waiting for Godot. Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann
For Lady Windermere’s Fan, Przybylski drew inspiration from the works of painters such as John Singer Sargent and Mary Cassatt, contemporaries of the playwright Oscar Wilde, to create a symbolically resonant setting for each of the four acts. Reviewers describe the results as “breathtaking” (Toronto Sun) – “stunning sets” of “nightmarish beauty” (The Globe and Mail). Przybylski’s team also devised a special black curtain that she says opens “like a lens in an old-fashioned camera” to frame the scenes as viewed by the audience. Her “wonderful sets are a clear continuation of the multi-layered text,” wrote the Ontario Arts Review.
Toronto Star critic Richard Ouzounian hailed Lady Windermere’s Fan as “the most visually stunning show” he’s ever seen at the Shaw Festival. “It’s unheard of (until now) that the same individual designs the best set at both festivals,” he said.
Windemere continues until October 19 and Godot until September 26. For a full schedule and detailed information on all the productions, visit the Shaw Festival and Stratford Festival websites.