Frontmezzjunkies reports: The Stratford Festival announces Antoni Cimolino’s final season as Artistic Director
A legacy season celebrating “This Rough Magic”
August, 2025… I’m thrilled to share that the Stratford Festival has unveiled its 2026 season—an especially poignant one, as it marks the final year under the inspired leadership of Artistic Director Antoni Cimolino. After a remarkable 40-year journey with the Festival, including 14 seasons at the helm, Cimolino’s farewell season promises to be a sweeping celebration of everything I love about theatre and the Stratford Festival. Under the theme “This Rough Magic,” it’s a heartfelt reflection on how essential theatre is in our lives—an homage to the art that has shaped so many of our stories.
“In planning this season, I chose plays that are among my personal favourites and that hold great meaning for me,” says Cimolino. “I would like to direct all of them myself, but I’m very happy to have so many wonderful directors joining me as I complete my tenure here at the Stratford Festival, a place that has been my artistic home for 40 years.”
Taken from Prospero’s farewell in The Tempest, “The theme of ‘This Rough Magic’ captures the heart of what theatre does best: it conjures illusion to reveal truth,” says Cimolino. “On stage, we witness life in all its complexity, crafted through stories that are both timeless and deeply resonant.“
“This season explores the power of performance itself: plays within plays, masques, deceptions, and acts of imagination that remind us that illusion is not just entertainment: it’s a tool for truth.”
The 2026 playbill features a dazzling array of productions that span genres, eras, and styles.
FESTIVAL THEATRE
At the Festival Theatre, Cimolino will direct The Tempest, Shakespeare’s tale of magic, transformation, and reconciliation. As a final Shakespearean offering, The Tempest holds profound resonance for Cimolino. Like Prospero, he has conjured worlds from words and guided audiences through storms and wonders. The Tempest is not only a masterwork of theatrical imagination, but also a meditation on legacy, letting go, and the enduring power of art to heal and inspire. It is, in every sense, a fitting farewell.
Two spectacular audience favourites headline the musical offerings of the 2026 season, both directed and choreographed by Donna Feore and presented at the Festival Theatre. First to open will be Guys and Dolls, the beloved Broadway classic featuring gamblers, showgirls, and unexpected romance. Feore has a thrilling new production planned, with a promise to include some favourite moments from her 2017 production, one of the top-selling musicals in the Festival’s history. Based on a story and characters of Damon Runyon, Guys and Dolls features Music and Lyrics by Frank Loesser and a Book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows.
And back by overwhelming popular demand is Something Rotten!, the runaway hit of the 2024 season. This riotous, irreverent musical comedy takes audiences on a wild ride through Elizabethan England, where two struggling playwrights hope to outshine Shakespeare by inventing an entirely new form: the musical. Packed with clever wordplay, show-stopping numbers, and winking nods to both Shakespeare’s canon and Broadway history, it’s a joyous celebration of theatre itself. Under Feore’s direction and choreography, the production dazzles audiences with its wit, energy, and sheer inventiveness. At the Stratford Festival, Something Rotten! has found its ideal home, where fans of Shakespeare and musicals can revel in its clever wit and downright silliness. The musical features a Book by Karey Kirkpatrick and John O’Farrell, Music and Lyrics by Wayne Kirkpatrick and Karey Kirkpatrick, and is conceived by Karey Kirkpatrick and Wayne Kirkpatrick.
Rounding out the mainstage offerings is a special limited engagement of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, a play that grapples with time, uncertainty, and the human condition. Directed by Molly Atkinson, this will be the first time Beckett’s absurdist masterpiece has been presented on the Festival stage. Haunting, perplexing, and sardonically funny, Waiting for Godot is the play that changed the face of drama in the 20th century. This rare staging promises to be a highlight of the season.
AVON THEATRE
Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman offers a deeply human portrait of illusion turned inward, where dreams and delusions collide in the pursuit of meaning and legacy. After the success of the Festival’s 2024 production of Salesman in China, which offered a compelling new lens on Arthur Miller’s most popular play, audiences will now have the opportunity to experience Death of a Salesman in its original form, in this production directed by Dean Gabourie.
The Schulich Children’s Play, The Hobbit, based on the book by J.R.R. Tolkien and adapted by Kim Selody, offers a playful yet profound theatrical experience for audiences of all ages. This fast-paced, imaginative adaptation distills Tolkien’s epic into a journey rich with illusion, transformation, and creativity, capturing the heart of the original novel while celebrating the magic of live performance. It will be directed by Pablo Felices-Luna.
Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest returns to the Avon Theatre with all its sparkling wit and satirical brilliance. Beneath a charming surface brimming with mistaken identities and social absurdities lies a deeper exploration of performance itself: how we present versions of ourselves to the world, and how those illusions shape our relationships and desires. In Wilde’s hands, deception becomes delight and playacting becomes revelation. The production will be directed by Krista Jackson.
Cimolino’s final production as Artistic Director will be Eduardo De Filippo’s Saturday, Sunday, Monday, in a brand-new adaptation by Donato Santeramo and Cimolino himself. This is a richly layered comedy that invites audiences into the heart of a Neapolitan kitchen, where love abides but conflict simmers over. With this production, Cimolino marks a remarkable milestone: the Festival will have staged four of De Filippo’s plays under his direction, placing him among a rare group of artistic leaders in the English-speaking world to champion the Italian playwright’s work so extensively. Through these productions, Cimolino has introduced Canadian audiences to the emotional depth, theatrical ingenuity, and cultural vitality of De Filippo’s legacy – works that explore the illusions we live by and the truths that must emerge.
TOM PATTERSON THEATRE
The Tom Patterson Theatre offers a dynamic trio of productions that delve into identity, illusion, and transformation.
Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream delights in theatrical playfulness. In an enchanted forest, mischievous fairies and a troupe of hapless amateur actors collide in a tangle of love, illusion, and transformation. This delicately woven fantasy, filled with glorious poetry, is one of Shakespeare’s best-loved comedies. It will be directed by Graham Abbey.
In Shakespeare’s Othello, the boundaries between truth and deception blur with devastating consequences as love, jealousy, and manipulation unravel lives and loyalties. Beneath its taut drama lies a haunting meditation on how perception can be weaponized, and how fragile the foundations of trust can be. Haysam Kadri will direct the production.
Adding an exciting contemporary voice to the mix is The Tao of the World, a dazzling world première from Jovanni Sy, who will also direct. Fusing Congreve’s The Way of the World with the fun and glamour of Crazy Rich Asians, The Tao of the World is a Restoration comedy for modern times. Following the success of Salesman in China (which Sy directed and co-wrote with Leanna Brodie), this inventive mash-up promises hilarity, romance, and billionaires behaving badly.
STUDIO THEATRE
Charlotte Corbeil-Coleman gives the season a bold and provocative new work, The King James Bible Play, a Stratford Festival commission. It begins with a gripping portrait of the men behind the monumental translation of the King James Bible, revealing the power structures and cultural biases embedded in their work. In the second half, a contemporary group of women take to the stage to reclaim the narrative, creating a play about the process. The work is a fascinating interrogation of translation in all its forms: between generations, between genders, between what we inherit and what we choose to believe. It will be directed by Nina Lee Aquino.
With these two new plays, The Tao of the World and The King James Bible Play, Cimolino will have brought 31 new works to the stage during his tenure as Artistic Director, a landmark in the Festival’s history. Reflecting on new play development, Cimolino is struck by the astounding variety of plays, but points to their unifying factor. “What has united all of these plays – and also reflects my own interest in theatre – is that they not only provoke thought but also touch the heart,” he says.
The 2026 season will also feature vibrant and enriching events in The Meighen Forum, a festival within the Festival introduced by Cimolino in the first year of his artistic leadership to deepen audience engagement.
“Under Antoni Cimolino, the Stratford Festival has flourished artistically and institutionally, expanding its repertoire, deepening engagement and championing new voices alongside classical traditions,” says David Adams, Chair of the Board of Directors. “His tenure has been marked by international acclaim and a steadfast commitment to theatrical excellence.”
Cimolino’s legacy at the Festival will be honoured with a number of events during the season. But Cimolino himself is firmly focused on the work at hand.
“The 2026 season provides brilliant opportunities for the Festival’s artists,” Cimolino says. “I feel it contains some of the best plays ever written and is a terrific way to hand the baton to the next Artistic Director.”
The 2026 season will run from April 20 to November 1. Tickets will go on sale to Members of the Stratford Festival in November and to the public in January.
The 2025 season continues with As You Like It, Annie, Sense and Sensibility, Dangerous Liaisons, Macbeth, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Anne of Green Gables, The Winter’s Tale, Forgiveness, Ransacking Troy, and The Art of War. (Click on the highlighted title for my review. The reviews of the remaining three will be written and posted soon, after I see them all in a few weeks.)
For more information and to purchase tickets, visit www.stratfordfestival.ca or call the box office at 1.800.567.1600.
Festival Theatre
The Tempest
Production Underwriters: Laurie J. Scott and The Whiteside Foundation.
Production Co-Sponsors: Dr. Dennis & Dorothea Hacker, Peggy Ptasznik, and Cathy Wilkes in memory of David.
Something Rotten!
Production Underwriters: John & Therese Gardner, and Danette Gentile Kauffman in memory of Gretchen & Dan Gentile.
Guys and Dolls
Production Co-Sponsors: Rob & Mary Ann Gorlin, Sylvia Soyka, Riki Turofsky & Charles Petersen, and Peter & Carol Walters.
Waiting for Godot
Production Co-Sponsors: Marilyn Gropp, Doug Kennedy, and Dr. Robert & Roberta Sokol.
Avon Theatre
The Importance of Being Earnest
Production Co-Sponsor: Sylvia D. Chrominska.
Death of a Salesman
Production Underwriters: The Harkins-Manning Family in memory of Jim & Susan Harkins.
Schulich Children’s Plays presents
The Hobbit
Production Sponsor: The Schulich Foundation
Saturday, Sunday, Monday
Production Underwriter: The William and Nona Heaslip Foundation.
Production Co-Sponsors: Three Generations of the Schubert Family.
Tom Patterson Theatre
Othello
Production Underwriter: The Westaway Charitable Foundation.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Production Underwriter: The Westaway Charitable Foundation.
Production Co-Sponsors: Cathy & Paul Cotton, Martie & Bob Sachs.
The Tao of the World
Production Sponsor: Anonymous.
Studio Theatre
Production Support made possible by the Pitblado Family Studio Theatre Endowment Fund.
The King James Bible Play
Production Co-Sponsors: Karon Bales & Charles Beall, Jane Fryman Laird, and The Tremain Family.
