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¶ (classical music) ¶

¶¶¶

¶¶¶

Male singer: ¶ There's a... ¶

¶ bright, golden haze on the meadow. ¶

¶ There's a bright, golden haze on the meadow. ¶

¶ The corn is as high ¶

¶ as an elephant's eye ¶

¶ And it looks like it's climbin' ¶

¶ clear up to the sky. ¶

¶ Oh, what a beautiful mornin' ¶

¶ Oh, what a beautiful day. ¶

¶ I got a beautiful feeling ¶

¶ Everything's goin' my way. ¶

¶¶

¶ Oh- ¶ (sfx: hard record acratch)

News Anchor: Canada has its first confirmed case

of the new strain of Corona virus.

Dr. de Villa: I'm reporting 643

new cases of Covid-19.

Kelly Nestruck: Antoni, he had programmed a big 2020 season.

One of his biggest. I think it was

going to be his biggest season.

Antoni Cimolino: We had spent approximately $25 million

in building and rehearsing plays

that would never be seen.

Colm Feore: We suddenly realized

we're not the first people going back.

We're the last people to go back.

If we ever go back.

¶ (gentle piano music) ¶

¶¶

Cimolino: No one saw this coming.

And I thought, 'this is going to be my legacy.'

¶¶

It was a huge impact.

Very few theaters had that.

Maybe a theater lost one play.

We lost an entire season.

¶¶

Feore: And he managed to go,

'Okay. I will listen to everybody.

Please, you're all welcome at the table.

Let's just hear from everybody,

and see how do we move forward.'

And he managed to do that.

Cimolino: The first thing we did

was capitalize on these fantastic films

that we had created.

Lucy Peacock: When things went online and StratFest

and all of those sort of things,

it was a brilliant idea.

¶¶

Cimolino: The year following, we went outdoors.

Feore: And he came up with a plan to do some stuff

in the parking lot and get people socially distanced

and just say, 'Hey, we're still here.'

¶¶

Cimolino: We followed Shakespeare

into the great outdoors.

We produced plays under tents,

but we were able to get audiences together.

It's very emotional, after all this time,

to hear music again,

to experience art again.

¶¶

Feore: He kept money flowing,

and the doors open and people employed,

under the worst circumstances.

Cimolino: We realized we had to support artists,

get our work done, reconnect with audiences.

So the numbers were smaller. We were still there.

We were standing. We were being heard.

We were fulfilling our mission.

¶¶

Sara Topham: Everything he did to see it through that time,

I think, is quite extraordinary.

I think that has been his commitment,

to leave it...secure.

¶ (gentle piano music) ¶

¶¶

¶ (soft rising music) ¶

¶¶

Male singer: ¶ All the sounds of the earth are like music, ¶

¶ All the sounds of the earth are like music. ¶

¶ The breeze is so busy, it don't miss a tree. ¶

¶ And an ol' weepin' willer is laughin' at me ¶

¶ Oh, what a beautiful mornin' ¶

¶ Oh, what a beautiful day. ¶

¶ I got a beautiful feeling ¶

¶ Everything's goin' my way. ¶

¶ Oh, what a beautiful ¶

¶ day! ¶

¶ (soft rising orchestral music) ¶

¶¶

Cimolino: They say theater

is a rehearsal for life.

¶¶

I've been preparing 40 years

for this moment.

¶¶

I mean now, a documentary?

We are just out of tech, we're starting previews,

it's the busiest time of the year.

Okay.

(sfx: video rewinding)

Reporter: There can hardly be a Canadian

who isn't familiar with this scene.

And the story behind the Stratford Festival

is almost as familiar.

How it all started with a king-sized dream,

and a tent to match.

¶ (strong drumbeat) ¶

- This has been the National Theater of Canada,

the birthplace of Canadian art.

- It is theater Mecca.

¶¶¶

Alex Trebek: Neal, go again. Neil: Culture for $1,200.

Alex Trebek: In 1953, the Shakespeare Festival

in this Ontario, Canada city

held its first performance.

Sean. John: What's Toronto?

Alex Trebek: No. Jennifer? Jennifer: What is Stratford?

Alex Trebek: Yes!

¶¶¶

Richard Ouzounian: It's plunked down in the middle of

Perth County, surrounded by that farmland.

Cimolino: Hundreds of thousands of people come here.

¶¶

Thom Allison: Their largest rep company in the world.

Place that changed the course of theater history.

Christopher Plummer: Let your indulgence

set me...free.

Eric McCormack: Those of us that were born here,

we had a dream...Stratford,

it was the Mount Olympus.

William Shatner: My memory of the Stratford stage

was one of great enthusiasm,

of passion, of love...

Othello: This and this.

The greatest discords be,

That e'er our hearts shall make!

André Sills: It's everybody's dream.

Norman Campbell: You know you're going to see

a great show,

whatever you're going to see in Stratford.

Richard III: My kingdom for a horse!

Stafford Arima: Cornucopia of theatrical gems

with the best of the best.

Cimolino: Alec Guinness. Scofield.

Bates. Maggie Smith.

Martha Henry. Bill Hutt.

And of course, Chris Plummer.

As a Canadian, this is it!

It's the Stratford Festival.

¶¶

My parents came from northern Italy and they met, though,

in Canada. They met in Sudbury,

and got to know each other

and eventually got married.

And they always had a relationship with Italy.

I was sent back when I was a kid.

My sister was born in Italy,

so there's a profound connection there.

My dad was a carpenter,

and a construction superintendent,

so he was very good with his hands.

He was a great sculptor and

you know, be able to design things,

and, designed our home.

But he worked on industrial and commercial projects.

My mum was a stay-at-home mom.

She would do everything she could to

contribute to the household.

My aunt was really the cultural influence.

And my parents supported all that.

And I would go to see theater

at the Théâtre du Nouvel- Ontario in Sudbury.

And that had a profound influence on me.

And the intention was not to come to the New World

to be immigrants, so that your kid can go into the arts.

I mean, as my dad said, you know,

there's a saying in Italian,

"Impara l'arte e mettila da parte."

So 'Learn about art, let's set it aside'.

I couldn't quite live with that.

I thought I was gonna become a lawyer,

but then I came here.

And I sat in a seat way up in the corner.

And I was lucky I was in that seat,

because I got to see not only the play,

I got to look at the entire audience.

And in that afternoon, my life changed.

¶ (gentle piano music) ¶

¶¶

I saw a production about

a group of young men

who decide that they are going to, you know,

abstain from seeing women and drink

and just focus on studying.

Now, I went to a Catholic boys school,

so I knew that this was not gonna end well.

And at the end of the play,

one of the young men says to the king how much he regrets

that they can't just get married and they have to wait.

And the king says, 'Come, sir,

he wants but a year and a day,'

And, Biron answers,

'That's too long for a play.'

And in that moment,

the beauty of that,

the, the sadness, but the joy,

and the fact that 400 years ago,

somebody wrote something so meta-theatrical,

something so conscious of being in a theater.

My mind was blown.

I realized, I need to be part of this.

I need to be part of this place,

and I need to be part of the theater.

¶¶

Robin Phillips had just said,

the artistic director of the festival,

the best theater school in the country was Windsor.

So it felt to me that

this was a place where I could get an education,

but also, I could learn how to be an actor,

and that it was a place that was respected.

So, it was the right place for me.

¶¶

And there was a young person there

who caught my eye.

Brigit was a little independent,

freethinking...

She could swear like a sailor!

And she liked to do that 'cause she's

not large, she's small, petite,

but man, she's like a firecracker, who goes off.

Brigit Wilson: I'd never met anyone like him.

There was just so, so many moving parts

that I, I just didn't...

really understand.

Cimolino: She was able to

tell me that she wanted to,

you know, spend some time with me, but not in a way

that was compromising in any way.

She just knew her mind.

Wilson: I pursued him like mad.

(laughs)

I don't know, he was just so darn cute.

Cimolino: And I have to admit, as a, a young man,

I kind of thought, wait, wait a minute!

Shouldn't be doing all that?

I was blown away, literally by her at the beginning.

And then I began to admire her.

And then I loved her.

¶ (gentle piano music) ¶

¶¶

Colm Feore: When I first heard about Antoni, Robert Beard,

wonderful man who's been a director

and a stage manager and a company manager here,

was in the production office and had received a letter,

from a young Master Cimolino,

whose parents, I guess,

ran a hardware store in Sudbury,

because in exchange for an audition,

and perhaps a successful placement in the company,

Mr. Cimolino was offering

toaster ovens to sweeten the deal.

How can we, you know, pass this up?

Wilson: We were both very fortunate

when we came out of theater school.

We were both rewarded with work right away.

Cimolino: I was very lucky,

when I got out of theater school,

the first job I had was in 'Shakespeare in the Park,'

and so I didn't get to Stratford.

I auditioned and wasn't accepted,

but I did get to do Shakespeare.

¶¶

I was...snout.

Snout, the bellows mender.

But on the opening night,

I lit the stage on fire.

There was this big stone head

on its side, covered in moss,

and we were all coming through with candles,

to sing the last song in Midsummer Night's Dream.

And I was coming through with my candle.

And something happened that had not happened

through all the rehearsals, which is

some of the moss caught fire.

So there I am, coming in

at the end of this first performance,

and I get...

hosed down with a fire retardant.

It wasn't an auspicious start in the theater.

¶¶

And I remember auditioning for Robin

and, I said, I have a contemporary piece.

I have, you know, Shakespeare.

And he says, 'Oh, show me the Shakespeares.

Anybody can act a modern play.'

And then, I just started working with Peter Moss.

I knew he directed at Stratford, and I wanted to

learn more about Shakespeare.

So I went and took a class with him,

and he was directing a play at Stratford in that year.

So with the auditions that

I had done with Robin and with John Neville,

I was a known quantity to the directors here.

And somewhere in the middle of that,

I got a job offer to be in

'All's Well That Ends Well'

that Peter Moss was directing,

Richard III.

That was being done here on the festival stage,

with Colm Feore.

And Murder in the Cathedral.

McCormack: I think Antoni and I were kind of in the same,

same spot. We came in around the same time.

But Stratford was helpful in...

becoming an actor.

And you're learning...

from the biggest, at least in our, in our world.

The Douglas Campbells and the Nicholas Pennells,

and there was, and then there was the young guys,

the Joe Zieglers and the Colm Foeres

that I was looking up to, going,

how do I steal from that?

Ouzounian: Antoni had

incredible charm as a young actor.

All he had to do was

the eyes got a little wider, and he smiled.

And you knew he was about to do something really stupid

and the audience would like him

because it would be funny,

and it would be sincere.

McCormack: He always had an elegance about it.

Even when he was doing comedy, there was a-

There... he's a very beautiful man,

but he's also, he, he moved like a dancer

and he spoke with a, with a-

He had a great voice and he was sort of

to the manor born.

Cimolino: I played a lot of different parts,

some bigger and smaller,

but I really wanted to play Romeo.

And I had the added benefit of looking

somewhat like...I could have come from Verona.

And then at that time, it was the off-season,

I was delivering pizzas.

And I'm delivering pizzas in my car,

and there's car following me,

following me, constantly following me!

And eventually I pull over and they're making signs.

And I pull over and I think, 'my God, somebody's gonna-

like, this is gonna be a fight.

What is going on?' And it's Monette!

And he gets out of the car,

and he says, 'I've decided, you're playing Romeo!'

Ouzounian: Romeo is a pig of a part.

It's really hard to do.

And he remembers, he talked to Colm Feore about it.

Who had played it a few years before him and said,

'My God, the first time we did a run through,

I had to go off stage at the end of Act one and vomit.'

And Colm said, 'Yeah,

I think I had to go off-stage and vomit

in the middle of Act One.' You know. (laughs)

¶¶ (audience applause)

Norman: Campbell: Hello, I'm Norman Campbell,

welcoming you to a wonderful evening of theater

at the Stratford Festival.

Romeo is played by Antoni Cimolino.

His friend Mercutio, by Colm Feore.

And Megan Porter Follows makes her

Stratford debut as Juliet.

Cimolino: In those days, we would film on two occasions.

Here on a Sunday afternoon on this stage,

and then on a Tuesday.

And they'd blend together the two takes of this.

And I found out on that Sunday night

that my mum had terminal cancer.

So, one take of that performance of Romeo

was very different from the other.

As I was trying to process all of that.

Romeo: I will lie with thee tonight.

Let's see for means.

You know, that's the thing about doing Shakespeare here.

It's informed by life.

Life happens, we change, we evolve.

And therefore, the roots that these plays make

in our souls, are much deeper.

Romeo: By a name, I know not how to tell thee who I am.

My name, dear Saint,

is hateful to myself because

it is an enemy to thee had I it written.

I would tear the word!

As a matter of fact, I noticed that just two years later,

I was in five different productions at the same time,

in addition to three acting parts,

one understudy, I was assistant directing.

I don't know when I had time to sleep,

but my God, it was good training!

Ouzounian: The French have a great phrase.

They call it a 'jeune premier.'

You are the young first lead, you know.

You're usually the guy who plays the prince.

If you're doing, you know, Sleeping Beauty.

And he was great in those kind of parts.

And I think he was wise not to know

he shouldn't play Hamlet.

He was not a bad actor,

but he was an actor who I think,

stopped after he saw,

'No, I can't go into the deep end of the pool.'

Peacock: Yeah, I can appreciate

in the large company,

that sometimes you can sort of see that the path

might not be as quick and easy

as it was maybe for some other folks around.

Wilson: He loved the journey of doing Romeo

with Megan Follows,

but I don't think the press was very kind to him.

I wouldn't say that that stopped him from acting,

but it's difficult to read those reviews.

And he did read them.

Romeo: But that a joy,

past joy calls out on me,

It were a grief, so brief to part with thee.

Cimolino: There was a key moment that I remember

when I was playing Laertes in Hamlet

a few years later in 1994.

And I'm on stage, and at that point

I've got a sword in my hand and I'm about to fight Hamlet,

and we're about to have a rather long sword fight.

And I think to myself,

'My God, did I return that call?'

And I realized my mind was already elsewhere.

There were other things I was interested in.

And I realized to be an actor, to be a good actor,

you need to have a laser focus

on your part and what you're doing in that moment,

and that was gone for me.

Allison: I can imagine if he thought,

'my work isn't up to the standard

that this place should demand,'

but he also was smart enough to see

that he had something else to offer.

¶ (soft piano music) ¶

Cimolino: And I was eventually asked

to assist in some auditions,

with a British director, Bill Gaskill.

And that was really revolutionary because I

worked as a director before,

but now was getting a chance to do it here.

Of course, I took that as a sign

that my acting wasn't up to scratch,

and I could see all my friends

were getting bigger parts,

and I was being offered a position

as an assistant director,

but it was really great.

Feore: In 1988,

I first ran across Antoni Cimolino

when we were in a production of Richard III.

I was playing Richard III,

and he most certainly wasn't,

(laughter) at all.

And I remember thinking,

'oh, this guy's probably going to be a director.'

Because he was playing

a chap behind me with a spear.

And as we were standing on,

you know, backstage, ready for the light to go,

but watching what was happening on set,

I heard him mutter

a pretty scathing assessment of the acting

that was going on in front of him at the time.

No names shall be mentioned.

And I thought, 'damned cheeky.

You, who just arrived,

to offer an opinion on this.'

Not wrong, right?

Ouzounian: One of the first big, if not the first big

Shakespeare he directed on the festival stage,

was the production of Twelfth Night.

Cimolino: Bill Hutt playing Feste.

And he was so supportive.

He told me how much his friends loved the production.

Ouzounian: It was very bold and ballsy

and Mediterranean,

and because Antoni knew

people were always judging him,

he always made sure when it came to the text,

he was on solid ground.

Peacock: When Antoni's in a rehearsal hall,

or in a theater, that's when he's

the most Antoni, the most happy,

the most relaxed.

It's like you can just sometimes feel

like the whole festival all around,

while he's sitting in the dark at the Tom Patterson,

you know, doing lighting cues.

And yet it's not with him in the theater.

In the theater, he is present in the moment,

and I think has true happiness and joy when he's doing that.

Cimolino: Okay, same spot everybody!

Well the director gets to use

every part of themselves.

I mean, they're working with a composer.

They're working, sometimes there are dances,

there's always movement,

there's visuals, you know,

an understanding of art history is really helpful.

You're leading a team. That's so satisfying!

It's so challenging.

Prospero: With humane care,

lodged thee in mine own cell,

till thou didst seek to violate

the honour of my child!

Caliban: Oh...

Cimolino: I think most assistant directors,

most young directors, wind up copying others

at the beginning, until you find what resonates with you,

what really sticks to your own ribs.

And it's in beginning to reject

the work of your mentors,

that one finds one's own voice.

Sills: The collaborator in him has really,

I think, blossomed over his tenure here.

The director-actor conversation

and relationship has really grown over the years, I find.

- ...will keep it, 'til you wore another wife.

Cimolino: Okay, I'm gonna stop us, 'cause that's a lot.

What I've been feeling over the last few runs is

that we've gotta find a way of both

maintaining that intimacy, but you know on this stage,

this close together, you just annihilate each other.

Feore: He had an awful lot to say about

how raw and naked

and available we needed to be,

to make that communicate to the audience,

because they're finally the ones

for whom it has to land.

And he always has an eye out for them.

Lear: I will not trouble thee, my child, farewell.

We'll no more meet, no more see one another.

But yet,

thou art my flesh,

my blood,

my daughter.

Topham: You know, as I observe him in Winter's Tale,

with the younger members of the company, you know,

when you ask an actor to,

in the trial scene, for example,

hold a spear for the entire trial scene,

you know, he never just says 'do it.'

He always wants to engage that person

in the process of building the scene.

Marissa Orjalo: I really loved the way that he

could marry

discipline, rigor

and respect for tradition

with nurturing young actors.

- If you find the idea of my being

your stepmother...

repugnant,

well, I am just as revolted

by the idea of your being

my stepso-(retching sound) aah!

Wilson: I don't think he also comes to it saying,

'I know what this line is. I understand this.'

He wants to discover it as well.

Ouzounian: And I usually find,

and I'm sure it's not coincidental,

when I see a Cimolino production,

I know what everybody's saying.

Cimolino: To words like 'distractedly'

which comes just when you want the glass to be shattered.

It's a word that, it sounds like what it is.

Distractedly, right?

You suddenly have four beats in one word.

Tom McCamus: He rarely talks to me. He just sort of lets me

kind of do things, even when I wished he would talk to me.

So in doing that, I've sort of,

I'm forced to use my own brain and

I'm forced to work with other actors.

Stephano: His forward voice now is

to speak well of his friend;

his backward voice is to utter

foul curses and to detract.

If all the wine in my bottle can recover him,

I will help his fever. Come!

McCamus: As the play goes on and as we start to get

more comfortable with it,

then he starts to come in with ideas of saying,

'I want you to think about this word or this idea

and see if you can place it

into the thing you've already done.'

Feore: And you have to be something of an actor

to direct other actors,

because you have to intuit,

where are they at in their process?

How's that development going? What are their needs?

What are their worries and concerns?

Cimolino: Oh, I think I was intensely envious of Colm.

He was so gifted,

and he was only a couple of years older than I was,

and he was playing major leads here

and playing them with huge confidence. Damn him!

Mercutio: Borrow Cupid's wings

and soar with them above a common bound.

Romeo: I am too sore enpiercèd with his shaft

to soar with his light feathers, and so bound,

I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe.

Colm as a fellow player, is very clear

that he never wanted to be a director.

And his willingness

and trust in allowing me

to direct him meant the world to me.

Feore: He directed my second

Richard the III, in 2022.

Richard III: Now is the winter of our discontent,

Made glorious summer

by this sun of York.

I knew that this was a certain, you know,

a watershed moment,

for me at least.

And I said, 'Look, I'm going to try...

all kinds of things.

And I said to Ant, 'and I hope it's okay with you.'

My T-shirt for this season is going to be,

'Dare to disappoint.

I got nothing to lose.'

Cimolino: Colm, has a brother who was in an accident,

was hit by a car as a young person,

and it impacted them for the rest of their lives.

So he brought that in,

that personal connection, into the production.

Feore: And he was very on board with that.

And I said, if you mind, if I recycle, it's gonna,

probably gonna kill me, because it's physically,

it's a stupid idea!

But it was a good idea insofar as...

becoming Richard III.

This is a guy who's capitalized on all his,

you know, his disabilities, his insecurities.

And so let us, let us weaponize

every place on him

that is weakened

by what he was born with.

Cimolino: It's the fact that everybody uses it against him.

They take him from being different, to being a monster.

And Colm knew what that was about from his own

life experience, having watched that, you know.

Feore: I've wrecked my hand.

My hand has never been the same, it's my own fault.

Richard's revenge, every morning I wake up,

I have to snap it back into position.

But, I realize that

one of our great things

about our relationship and friendship is,

he knows he can just tell me the truth.

And he knows, worse comes to worst, he just calls my wife.

Donna Feore: One of the greatest things is when Colm,

when my husband is working with Antoni,

and it's one of the worst things because, you know,

I'm stuck with both of them at the same time.

Feore: And to give you an idea

of how resourceful he is,

he was having some difficulty with me

at some point in King Lear,

and I guess didn't know quite

what to say to me to get what he wanted.

I went in the next day,

and he said

precisely what he needed to say,

to get what he wanted.

And at some moment it occurred to me,

he called Donna and said,

'He's not getting it, he's too thick.

I don't know what it is. What do I say to him?'

And I looked at him and I just said,

'You called Donna!'

And he blushed and I went,

'The two of you, ah, together,

Nope, nope, nope, nope!'

Cimolino: His willingness and trust

in allowing me to direct him meant the world to me.

Our work together were among

the best memories I have in the theater.

Harper: Tell me, whoever did it...

Feore: And so it's that sense of

care and trust that we share,

that I felt allows me

to be bolder, braver...

just risk more.

And so you get to things, and people say,

'Well, King Lear, it's not that big a part.'

I said, 'Well, the way we did it,

it damn near killed me.'

Lear: She's gone forever!

I know when one is dead,

and when one lives.

(sobs)

She's dead as earth.

(sobbing)

Lend me a looking glass.

If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,

Why, then she lives.

Richard Rooney: There's a tremendous amount of depth

and thought that goes into his,

his Shakespeare productions.

Duke of Buckingham: By heaven, I come in

perfect love to him;

And so once more return and tell his grace.

When holy and devout religious men

are at their beads,

Sills: Antoni as a director, he loves Shakespeare,

which is, I think,

so needed for this place

because Stratford...

is Shakespeare first, I feel.

Cimolino: When they first started to put in

closed theaters in England

in, you know, the late 16th century,

that was a revolution.

They were able to create

audibility, focus,

and by making it so the stage was right in

the middle of the audience, they made it so

it wasn't about visual effects,

it was about the words and the actor.

McCormack: I feel like when I see Antoni's stuff,

there's a reason for the choices he makes.

Let's look at the text, let's really take our time

and appreciate what's here.

There's a purity, there's not a lot of effects

and, a simplicity

that allows the language to, to blossom.

Ouzounian: Antoni will zero-in on a speech, or a line

and think there's something about humanity in there,

that I want to stress.

Hamlet: Ay, there's the rub!

For in that sleep

of death,

what dreams may come when we have

shuffled off this mortal coil,

must give us pause.

There's the respect that makes calamity

of so long life.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time...?

Cimolino: You need to understand

what the text might have been as best as you can,

in the time in which it was written.

What was Shakespeare writing about?

What did it mean to him personally?

What did it mean in that moment in time?

What does it mean to us today?

What does it mean to our society,

this play at this moment?

What resonates with me?

What experience have I had that are like this,

or that inform this?

Macbeth: Life's but a walking shadow,

a poor player,

that struts and frets

his hour upon the stage,

and then is heard no more.

Feore: You know, sometimes he's done the plays

a few times, so he will say,

'You know, when I did this a decade ago,

my understanding was different.

Now I'm thinking more like this.

I'm, I'm wanting to lean in more into these ideas.

So are you agreeable with that?

Does that make sense to you?'

Cimolino: It takes a lot of skills and understanding

and years of commitment to do it all well.

And...you know,

having spent over 40 years in the theater,

I feel like I'm, I'm starting to get good at it.

¶¶ (audience applause)

Rick Mercer: And I'm standing outside the premiere stage

of the Stratford Festival with the Stratford

artistic director, Richard Monette.

Hello, Richard. Monette: Hello.

Mercer: He, of the Deep Voice.

(low voice) Hello. Monette: Yes.

Mercer: You have the best voice in Canada.

Monette: Yes! Mercer: Yes, so-

Monette: I've got the best voice in the world,

now that Orson Welles is dead.

Cimolino: Richard was...

in many ways a genius.

It was like the circus came to town,

when Richard be around.

He was filled with ideas and creativity.

But he would move on to things pretty quickly.

You know, actually staying with an issue,

was not his strength.

Monette: And when I first hired Antoni,

he came to me and said, 'Could I be your assistant director?'

And I said, 'Sure, sure.'

But, I didn't think he knew anything.

And I was convinced...

he knew nothing about numbers

because he said to me, that his wife,

did all the bills at home.

Janice Price: Antoni would stop in my office,

like, why is Romeo in my office?

He was asking questions about

running the business of the

largest theater festival on the continent.

Feore: He followed Richard around,

absolutely, held him up

and made sure he got to the meetings on time.

And advised, consoled, cajoled.

Everything that one has to do with one's collaborators,

if they happen to also be your boss.

Ouzounian: Antoni kept getting

bigger and bigger roles.

He was an assistant and he was an associate.

And of course, because he's a workaholic

like me, they all got done.

So he just...evolved.

Wilson: When he started to take on projects

for the festival where he was producing,

those were all self-motivated.

Cimolino: By 1998,

he realized it was going well

and we could do things.

Ouzounian: Then at one point,

I remember somebody who was picked to be

the general manager didn't work out...

and left.

Cimolino: All that, led up to some

(chuckles) a lunatic move

by our board of governors

to ask me to take on

the role of executive director here.

¶ (trumpet fanfare) ¶

¶¶¶

Feore: I think we all accepted

that it was a very organic movement for someone

who had said, 'You know, acting is fun, but

I'm not having as much fun as I would like.'

McCormack: What Antoni did, which was,

as it turns out, brilliant, was just pay attention

and listen and learn from the other guys.

I've always looked at Antoni as somebody who was,

who was shrewd in all the best ways.

¶¶

Feore: It gives me great pleasure

to introduce you to the newly minted

General Director of the Stratford Festival,

Antoni Cimolino.

(applause)

Cimolino: Thank you Colm. Thank you.

Let me just provide a little bit of background here,

as to how we came to this day,

and how we, uh, came to decide on this management structure.

¶ (smooth jazz) ¶

¶¶

Cimolino: I think Brigit was a little, leery about

because she didn't want to stay in Stratford forever.

She had a career. She was on a television series.

She had a much more successful career than I had.

Wilson: I thought we were going to be that couple,

that when you buy a home in Stratford,

that's when the person doesn't get asked back.

That was that was some sort of legend. Okay?

So we bought the home.

And I kept thinking, 'No, we're not staying here.'

I would say to the other mothers in the playground,

'Well, we won't be here next year.'

Cimolino: It really made me ask some fundamental questions

about what contribution I wanted to make,

and how I could do that alongside my partner?

¶¶

Wilson: It wasn't easy for me to accept that

we weren't going anywhere.

But I will say, you know,

it was a great place to raise our kids.

Cimolino: And so staying in Stratford was hard,

and to be offered an ongoing role,

which wasn't an acting role.

She was saying to me, do you sure you want to do this?

Like, this is really taking you off of

what you'd always wanted to be.

Wilson: In hindsight, it was good for Antoni

to be around Richard, during those years

when things weren't so great for Richard,

because he knew how to problem-solve.

Cimolino: I wanted to help, and I wanted to understand

the whole of the building. I'd never heard

that he had said he had the equation,

the building in his head.

It has been my pleasure to work

alongside Richard since 1993.

Well Richard, you're a great success,

and we're thankful for it.

(applause/cheering)

Ouzounian: There was a period of years

with Richard Monette, where

it was kind of like the gold standard.

And Antoni was working with him as an assistant then,

so he got that in his DNA.

Cimolino: Richard Monette really wanted to start

a training program for actors,

and I worked with him to find funding for it.

So the Birmingham Conservatory

turned into a program unlike any other.

Monette: We were finding that the theater schools

increasingly were not doing Shakespeare.

You know, they'd do one. So we had no farm team.

Cimolino: And it's fallen to the theaters to make sure

that there is support there for them.

Monette: This conservatory was set up so that

the young people would get training.

So that they'd come into the company the next year

and have some tools.

Cimolino: We've augmented and enhanced

those programs over time.

And so they're important pillars

of arts training in Canada.

Monette: I have visions,

but they're expensive visions, you know.

But unless you got somebody

who's gonna make this work financially, practically,

¶¶

it wouldn't get done.

¶¶

Cimolino: And we were working after a few years,

side by side on things.

And they were incredible years.

Monette: We're good partners in this regard.

And because he was an artist,

he was an actor, he's a director,

and now he's the executive director

who takes care of the money.

Wilson: It was interesting, I think, that

Richard recognized a younger version of himself

and he wanted to help Antoni.

Rooney: I think it was predicated

on the fact that Antoni

could just get things done.

He was a master at managing

a repertory company.

And on Richard's part, a commitment to Antoni

to let him develop his skills as a director.

Wilson: I remember him saying to, to Antoni,

you have to grow up someday and get off the stage.

Which was an interesting thing for Monette to say.

Monette: And without him,

I couldn't have started the conservatory.

I couldn't have started the new play development.

I couldn't have renovated these

two theaters and built the studio.

Cimolino: Sit down, Richard, the roasting is just starting.

(laughter)

Monette: Everybody's a critic!

(laughter)

Ouzounian: I think Richard Monette and Antoni Cimolino

had a father-son relationship.

Cimolino: Richard Monette? Monette: Yes?

Cimolino: Congratulations.

Monette: You don't want a job, do you?

Cimolino: No.

Wilson: You could say mentor because that's a natural word,

but it was much closer than that.

They were, they were like brothers.

They just spoke a language that was so similar.

They got each other.

¶¶

Cimolino: And I watched Richard in those times as he,

you know, he identified himself

so much with the job,

it was hard for him to stop.

And I remember a conversation

I had with him the night before he died.

He was already sick, and the next day he had an embolism

that took him, tragic.

¶ (soft piano music) ¶

¶¶

¶¶ (audience applause)

¶¶

Cimolino: I don't think it would have been right for me

to become artistic director after Richard,

because I felt like I was part of that work.

I would have represented more continuity,

when we already had 14 years of continuity.

Peter Mansbridge: It is the largest

Shakespeare festival in North America,

drawing more than a half-a -million visitors every year.

So when Ontario's Stratford Festival

decided to shake up its leadership,

people took notice.

The new trio of artistic directors was touted

as a bold, fresh start.

Cimolino: And we brought together a group of

really extraordinary people,

Marti Maraden and Don Shipley

and Des McAnuff, to share together

the role of artistic director.

Kelly Nestruck: I was really excited by that season.

It seemed to be everything to everyone.

Cimolino: It was time for a change.

What Marti and Des and Don brought were new perspectives.

Ouzounian: The irony is, originally that was not

the triumvirate that was supposed to happen,

and what they finally came up with,

it was destined to fail.

And when you say to people,

'Oh, yes, and here's the three people

who are running Stratford.

Bom boom, bom boom, bom boom.

And people would go, 'Ba boom?!'

(laughs)

It just...

it didn't work.

Mansbridge: But less than two years later,

it's all fallen apart.

Cimolino: The fact that it didn't work out

as we thought it might was disappointing,

but ultimately we were able to move forward into the future,

and Des McAnuff eventually stepped forward

as the sole artistic director.

I'm with a very special person, artistic director

for the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Des McAnuff.

McAnuff: Hey! Cimolino: Hi.

Rooney: We were very fortunate

that Antoni persuaded Des to step up.

Nestruck: That first season was incredible,

and it really did show you

what Des could bring,

which was eyeballs from New York.

Cleopatra: If one man in all of Alexandria

can be found to say I did wrong,

I swear to have myself crucified

to the palace doors by my own slaves.

Caesar: One man in all the world

can be found now and forever,

to know that you did wrong,

that man will have either to conquer the world as I have,

or be crucified by it.

Des McAnuff: The fact that we've had journalists

from all over the world coming here at a time when

journalists are not traveling as much,

is a remarkable achievement.

People, I think, are genuinely excited about

what's going on at the Stratford Festival.

Cimolino: And during the time of Des' leadership

as artistic director, we benefited from

a new way of working, a new way of looking at things.

The place became stronger because of that.

Rooney: He was probably what the festival needed.

Someone to come in who was unafraid to make changes.

Cimolino: And we did some fantastic things

during the years that he was artistic director,

and we all were deeply appreciative of the fact

that he wanted to take time

out of all the other projects

he was doing to be here,

and led the company forward till 2012.

¶ (piano music) ¶

¶¶

Somebody said to me, a director said,

'You know, they're never gonna make you

the head of medicine at a place where

you began as an orderly.'

Arima: What struck me about Antoni

was this kind of

angelic energy.

Very calm, very much

the antithesis of Des McAnuff.

McCormack: The length of time it took

for Antoni to take the reins

is a typically Canadian thing,

and I think he waited.

I think he legitimately just said, 'My time will come.'

Lloyd Robertson: You might think the top

artistic position in theatre in North America

would be held by someone in Los Angeles, or New York.

In fact, the biggest job on the continent,

is here in Canada, in Stratford, Ontario.

And this year, it's going to

a home-grown hero from modest beginnings.

Ouzounian: He didn't want to grab the crown

or lobby for the crown.

I think he wanted it to have to come to him inevitably.

Rooney: There was a search committee

and there were viable alternatives.

Cimolino: And they, you know, looked at candidates

around the world. And so, I was interviewed by that.

Rooney: I think the feeling was that,

that Antoni was ready. He was very keen.

Cimolino: And I was happy to

eventually get a phone call saying,

we want you to take on this responsibility.

Rooney: So there was probably a degree of,

'this was a safe pair of hands.'

This is someone that, that really knows the place

and is utterly devoted to it.

McCormack: He is...one of us that,

that came from here, that looked up to the place,

that, that earned it.

He wasn't brought in from London,

wasn't, some American talent that was brought up briefly.

Topham: There are many difficult parts

of being an artistic director of, of running,

particularly a company of this size.

But in actual fact, it's

almost the only one of its size.

Donna Feore: It's a tall order.

You really, you have to know all the

aspects of the building

and all the challenges and the gifts

that come with the operation here.

But it helps if you know where the bodies are buried.

Dr. M. Lee Myers: His passion for the Stratford Festival was

so apparent to everyone,

and he was greatly respected

and I think even loved by

so many people who worked at the festival.

He had a terrific vision for moving forward

with the festival, so he ended up being

the very logical choice.

- There's a line in one of Shakespeare's plays,

'this is as it should be,'

It seemed right.

Sandra Pitblado: We had a conversation

as he became Artistic Director

just after Des was leaving.

He was very excited about it all, as was I.

I was very pleased for him, and I wanted to be sure

that he was gonna be able to do it.

And I remember we had a conflict on,

the first year that he was the artistic director,

because he wanted to direct a Shakespeare play.

And I said, 'No, you can't do that'.

And he said, 'Well, I'm going to.'

I said, 'No, you're not'.

He had to run the festival and not be distracted.

Donna Feore: Who would be crazy enough to do that?

This is the guy who runs this entire operation

and still directs a show.

I only direct a show,

and that's hard enough.

Pitblado: Next year you can direct a Shakespeare play.

You can do two, but you can't do one this year.

Cimolino: This place means everything to me,

so I wanted to make sure that I did a good job.

So it was nerve wracking.

Those first few years,

they used up so much energy,

because everything required

a lot of nervous energy on my part.

And we got liftoff.

¶ (slow jazzy bass) ¶

¶¶ (audience applause)

¶¶

Sills: It's a big,

big job to get to the art.

There's so much of the business side of it

that needs to be done.

Cimolino: The festival's enormous, by every measure.

The budget, somewhere close to $80 million.

I mean, the festival theater is larger than

every Broadway theater, but one.

Every afternoon at the Stratford Festival, every day

we have 7 to 8 thousand seats to sell.

So this particular place needs to be

very, very carefully managed

for the future, that it's so it'll always be here.

Arima: He believes in this artform.

He believes in the power of theater,

and what it's meant to do, to move,

to touch, to inspire an audience.

But he also brings to this artistry,

a severe understanding of the business.

Allison: I've watched artistic directors age

dramatically being there,

because you've got the whole place on your shoulders,

hundreds and hundreds of jobs,

millions and millions of dollars.

Cimolino: You know, there's seven people

who work here, for every actor on the stage.

So, it's a whole place.

Feore: Here's where the money is well-spent.

Here's where the money is ill-spent.

Here's what I think we need to do to be taken seriously,

when we're asking people for money to support this idea.

Topham: One thing that is not to be underestimated,

is his capacity for developing

long-term relationships

with donors.

Jim Pitblado: I've been impressed by his,

his leadership and his abilities to put on

good art and good entertainment.

Sandra Pitblado: It's a very, very special place.

And we've just felt that it was something

that we needed to keep supporting,

even when we couldn't support it very much.

The people we've known

and supported, have been remarkable.

Cimolino: One of the things I really wanted to do

was to promote Canadian talent.

You know, the Stratford Festival

had been around for decades.

The fact it was an internationally renowned

institution became an excuse

to have directors, time and again,

who were not Canadian,

who were from around the world.

The problem with that is,

over many decades, Canadians didn't work here,

in numbers that they should have.

So we did not develop the pool of Canadian talent.

Dr. Myers: He's a very loyal and committed Canadian,

(applause)

and I think he sees the

importance of his developing

our own theatrical culture here.

Cimolino: This place made it so that

a Canadian could stay here,

could contribute to the future of the country here,

where we could get groups of Canadian artists together

to provide a uniquely Canadian perspective

on this great legacy.

Coriolanus: Nor check my courage

for what they can give,

Sicinius Velutus: In the name o' the people,

and in the power of us the tribunes,

we, even from this instant,

banish him our city,

never more to enter our Rome gates,

in the people's name,

I say, it shall be so.

Ouzounian: A lot of young directors got chances,

from him, at Stratford.

He did not keep going back to the old guard,

and he would often give somebody,

'Why did you bring that director back a second time?

They weren't that good the first time.'

'Well, I don't know if that was

all their fault the first time.

Let's let them try again.'

Arima: Antoni, at his core, has paternal energy.

He's a nurturer. He's a caregiver.

And so I think that how he practices his leadership,

is always looking at being able to

not only support the artists,

but to help push them,

help to grow, help them to evolve,

because then the work becomes...electric.

¶¶

- The government of Prime Minister Mackenzie King

announced moments ago that Canada

has declared war on Japan.

- We are Japanese. You are Japanese.

- You know what I mean?

- We're not animals.

- We've had farmhands in there before.

They were fine with it.

Cimolino: Producing Canadian playwrights

was really important to me.

Getting Canadian directors on these stages,

was really important to me.

Because for probably

50 of our 70 years,

we didn't do that.

Donna Feore: Antoni and I grew up together here.

We have a profound respect for the legacy of this place,

and the history of what this place is,

and who came before us.

However, he's also been really open

and excited about this next generation,

and the new ideas that, that come to this space.

Nestruck: A living theater company needs to be

creating new work.

And that includes finding new ways to tackle classics,

and, you know, allowing

the artists who live in the present age

to premiere shows,

and not just because we feel we have to,

but because that's what theater is.

Arima: And that kind of evolution,

and that kind of metamorphosis,

is what artistic leaders like Antoni,

have the privilege of doing,

and have the courage to make happen, which is what he did.

- We are here to help men with AIDS.

We are here to help them die.

Cimolino: New play development went from

something we did once in a while,

to something that we've become really good at.

¶¶

You know, there's a lot of theaters around the world

that do ten, 12 plays.

But they'll do one play and then they're done,

and they'll do another play.

Maybe they'll have two plays that overlap.

Here at the Stratford Festival,

we do 12 to 15 plays,

really, all at the same time.

We create work that

ranges from the ancient Greeks

right through to new plays,

with musicals in between.

But because they're all happening at the same time,

you get a festival that is in conversation

so that the audience can come

and be richer for what they're

taking in, one after another.

- ¶ How a mediocre actor ¶

¶ from a measly little town ¶

¶ is suddenly the brightest jewel ¶

¶ in England's Royal crown. ¶

¶ Oh God, I hate Shakespeare, ¶

¶ that little turdy has no sense about the audience. ¶

¶ He makes them feel so dumb! ¶

¶ The bastard doesn't care that ¶

¶ my poor ass is getting numb. ¶

Nestruck: Yeah, he has a lot of respect for Shakespeare,

but what I like about him as an artist director is

that he hasn't forced his directors to

feel the same way about Shakespeare as he does,

and he's allowed for

an infinite variety of Shakespeare's

to sort of flourish there.

Ouzounian: Contrary to what some people might say,

I was not like the

major booster of everything they did.

If they did something crappy, I was the first person

to give it one star and go

'take it out, throw it in the garbage!'

But Antoni let a lot of those happen,

because he did not believe that you

rode roughshod over other people.

Nestruck: When he employs directors who are going to do

something a little bit more exciting with the Shakespeare,

a little bit more different, or at least allows for

some of those productions to be on the schedule,

the audiences respond.

Richard II was quite out there for

some Stratford audiences, it sold quite well.

¶ (upbeat modern music) ¶

¶¶¶

- Six years, we banish him...

¶¶¶

and he..shall..go!

¶ (electric guitar) ¶

Arima: Audiences tastes that have changed over decades,

which are still changing to this day.

Audiences are still

trying to figure out their

connection to the theater.

And when you see

an artistic director

make a choice a few seasons ago

to put into the Avon Theater

The Rocky Horror Show,

that to me was a moment I thought,

Antoni is making a change.

Feore: But we want to sell tickets too, right.

Tickets to dot-dot-dot, everything else.

We have a lot of spaces to fill.

We need to do other things.

People want to see other things.

And it's great if you're doing 'Coriolanus'

to have the distraction of, you know, 'Crazy For You'

or something else going on that

allows people a release.

Donna Feore: He understands that the musical is something

that people want to see,

but also the value of that genre.

And what music can do that nothing else can.

Arima: To bring a group of plays and musicals together,

that shine a light on

the ever-evolving nature of human beings,

is what a great artistic director does

in the curation of a playbill.

Topham: I would say that Antoni,

he's done a beautiful job of

finding a way to connect things

together and for an audience.

Cimolino: We've done some things that we're proud of.

We've done a lot of things not well enough.

¶¶ (audience applause)

¶ (gentle piano music) ¶

¶¶

Nestruck: The time when the theater company was

at its largest,

it didn't open the doors and start to lay the groundwork

for a festival

that would represent Canada

in the 21st century, properly.

Cimolino: Ensuring that we had diversity on our stages

was something that the festival

was aware of in the 1990s.

But what I began to realize

after the murder of George Floyd,

and the social reckoning that happened, was

we didn't support people in the way that we needed to.

¶¶

I don't think there was an intention

to marginalize and to hurt,

and yet that was the outcome.

The festival did not provide the support that was needed,

both on stage and behind stage throughout the enterprise,

that it wasn't enough to have some artists on stage.

Sills: The journey wasn't (chuckle) straight forward.

There was a bit of coloring the stage at first,

where there was like, yes,

we see other different

ethnicities on stage, but then to actually

take the risk and

believe in people that they

could actually do these parts

was something that came over time.

Clarence: I have passed a miserable night,

(sighs)

so full of ugly sights,

of ghastly dreams,

I would not spend another such a night,

though 'twere to buy a world of happy days.

Cimolino: We felt that providing a voice

to the IPPOC community,

so that they could say,

here's what our experience was,

was really critically important.

We needed to do that not in a private, concealed way,

but open it up to the public.

Everything that was said, was hard to hear.

It was truthful. It was honest.

And as a leader,

I realized I'd come up short.

Sills: These days, when I see the younger actors

who are just kind of like given an opportunity,

I was like, don't, don't,

don't take this for granted,

'cause a lot of us fought for it!

I felt like I had to fight for every,

every line that I ever had.

The changes that have happened

affected everything from how we contract,

to how we begin our work together in rehearsals,

to the kind of considerations

we have when we're casting plays.

And allowing more voices to be part of that process.

Feore: They're shuffling in now, very effectively

plays from all over the place.

We have all kinds of different people

who have been welcomed to the table.

Say, what do you want to say? We- go for it.

We have the best resources and the best people.

So please, bring us what you've got.

That makes it a real festival.

Cimolino: Was it hard to hear it? Yes.

Was it important to hear? Absolutely.

Did it make for important change? Yes.

Arima: And to me, Antoni has been able to negotiate over

navigating this organization and this institution

through the reckoning that happened,

and discussing equality

and diversity within organizations.

Duke of Buckingham: You are too senseless-obstinate,

my lord, too ceremonious and traditional.

Weigh it but with the grossness of this age,

You break not sanctuary in seizing him.

Cimolino: I do believe in giving voice to

people who come from different points of view.

That makes for better theater.

That makes for better theater, that represents Canada today.

Mistress Ford: -as long as I have an eye

to see the difference of men's likeness:

and yet, he praised

women's modesty and spoke

in such an orderly and well-behaved way,

that I would have sworn his disposition

would have gone with the truth of his words.

Cimolino: I think a female point of view,

it makes for great work,

but also work from a

point of view that wasn't

taken into account

for too many decades here.

So, that was important to me.

Peacock: You know, Antoni has been really

committed to

bringing women up through the company,

as directors, as actors, challenging them.

Ouzounian: I think back, some of the greatest shows he did,

I remember Mary Stuart,

those women all on stage

together, was magnificent.

Somehow, you have to have

a man who was very comfortable with himself,

to let those lions on the stage.

Peacock: If you actually

put a graph together, the number of women

that he has brought up and through to do

really great, wonderful things either here or beyond,

when they leave here,

is a real testament to his commitment to that,

and to women playing a serious role in,

in, at the festival and elsewhere.

Ouzounian: The triumphs of Lucy Peacock,

Seana McKenna,

Yanna McIntosh, Martha Henry

these are people who

he believes in, gives chances to,

and they always deliver the goods.

Martha Henry: Shakespeare didn't write any parts

for women my age, so I kind of thought,

well, that's it for me.

That's the end of my acting career.

And then Antoni came up with this idea.

Cimolino: Prospero is a leader,

a Prince,

and Queen Elizabeth was on the throne

during Shakespeare's,

a better part of his life,

called herself the Prince.

I felt that Shakespeare's

intentions in that play,

were built on what he saw

out of this extraordinary leader

in Queen Elizabeth.

And I had an extraordinary leader,

on my hands, in Martha Henry.

Prospero: As you, from crimes would pardon'd be,

Let your indulgence

set me free.

¶ (otherworldly music) ¶

(gasp)

¶¶

Cimolino: Martha called me during the pandemic,

and let me know that she had

gotten cancer on her spine.

But Martha was the embodiment of true grit,

and she just wanted to keep going.

And so putting Three Tall Women

was incredibly important. She was in tense pain

during that production.

- Remember monogamy? - Eh, no...

You can talk about monogamy if you like.

Pro and con, if you like,

leave me out of that one.

- Infidelity is a matter of spirit.

Isn't that what they say?

Cimolino: The fact that we were able to record that,

meant everything to me.

The Martha that left us and is captured in that film,

is the embodiment, the distillation

of all of her values,

of her power,

of her desire to create work

against all odds.

You know, the theater that I grew up in,

was very much run by men.

And I just can't believe that

that's good for the theater.

I can't believe that's how you get the best talent.

So ensuring that we have,

a representation of directors, designers,

of writers that are female is,

is very, very important.

Gertrude: And for your part, Ophelia,

I do wish that your good beauties be

the happy cause of Hamlet's wildness.

So shall I hope your virtues

will bring him to his wonted way again,

to both your honours.

Ophelia: (sobs) Madam, I wish it may.

(sobs)

Topham: How exhausting it must be

that every person who interacts with you

on some level,

big or small, they want something from you.

(crowd chatter)

Cimolino: My friends who are still friends,

were actors who started in the same year as I did.

They watch me go through different phases.

Allison: You know, when you start out as kids together,

you have this sort of a weird bond.

Myers: I've always felt sorry for him,

when he has had to plan the next season,

and sometimes let an actor

who is a friend, who is a colleague,

know that there isn't a great role for them.

Cimolino: I try to be as straightforward and as honest

with them as possible, but I also began to realize

that I couldn't go to the bar in the same way.

I couldn't have the same relationships as before,

because that would be unfair.

They'd be compromising.

And once in a while, when I had somebody over for dinner

because they had been a long-time friend,

after a few glasses of wine, they'd be telling me

what parts they needed to play.

Topham: That is the cost of this life for you,

is that it's hard to have a human interaction,

free of that desire.

Cimolino: So there is a place for loyalty,

but there's also the importance of common sense.

And ultimately your greatest loyalty,

has to be to the institution.

It's March, and this

disease that's at the other side of the globe

is suddenly starting to crop up everywhere,

and we're beginning to realize it's spreading.

Feore: Donna was doing 'Chicago.'

We were doing Richard III.

We had a crystal ball.

We could see that sales were good for both those shows.

Wilson: I think I was still learning my understudy lines

when he turned to me and said, 'What are you doing?'

Because I think I thought we were

still going to do the season.

Topham: I mean, for a place this large,

to stop producing plays,

is kind of unthinkable.

It's like a shark, this place,

it has to keep moving, or it, it, it can't exist.

Dan Mathiesen: Earlier this week,

we learned of the decision that the Stratford Festival

would be putting on hold its 2020 season.

Cimolino: I mean, we were doing 15 plays.

It was going to be a glorious season.

And then it led not only to heartache,

but it was a perfect storm for the festival,

and I was worried that we would really have our,

our existence challenged.

Price: During Covid, when we were on those calls

with leaders of large organizations

in the arts across our country,

Antoni really showed tremendous

national leadership

in our sector during that time.

McCamus: I think he's handled it,

I mean, quite beautifully.

I watch him sometimes I wonder, I go,

how much of an actual

emotional impact did it have on him?

Because he probably,

he probably could have been ready to leave

before a lot of that stuff happened.

But then you don't want to leave your theater

in that kind of a state.

Wilson: When his time was up, it was supposed to be 2024.

But because we lost a couple of years

due to that pandemic,

they offered him two more years.

Cimolino: And I feel that

to stay longer would be a mistake.

It's time now.

And to have left a couple of years ago,

would be to leave it still reeling from the pandemic.

So, the setting of the moment wasn't simply my choosing,

it was the universe that kind of

told me when it had to be.

¶¶ (audience applause)

¶ (uplifting piano music) ¶

¶¶

Cimolino: We were opening a new Tom Paterson theater,

and there was so much to work out.

You know, it was like juggling chainsaws.

Tom Patterson was our founder,

and, there was a Quonset hut

here on this site,

that had been built last century.

And in the 1950s, gradually we started to do plays

and it became a really favorite venue.

Like this stage, the elongated thrust

was just much loved,

but the building was falling apart.

You know, in the winter we had to take down the lights,

because we had snow and we had lights,

we wouldn't have a building, so, the room itself worked.

It's just the infrastructure was falling apart,

so it came time that we had to replace it.

And that was a bit terrifying because

I felt that if we didn't replace it

with something extraordinary, it just wouldn't happen.

How do you take something that's so loved

and replace it?

And the answer was by infusing it with beauty.

So as you can see, it's a stunning building.

The stage has all the intimacy and the power

of the old Tom Patterson.

Arima: I was just gobsmacked by

the beauty of this theater,

and the theatricality of that space.

Coming to see a play

at the Tom Patterson is a

unique experience as soon as you walk into the theater.

(applause/cheering)

Feore: The Tom Patterson Theater stands because

he willed it into being,

and made sure it happened.

Cimolino: In the New York Times, they just

talked about how it's the most beautiful new theater

and most effective new theater that they've seen built.

So yeah, we're proud of it.

Opening a new theater is

an act of faith in the future,

that there will be theater,

this 2,400 year-old art form will survive.

There will be a future.

I've been blessed on the day I first came here.

As I said, it changed my life.

I, I've been blessed by this place.

Wilson: He was very ambitious, very talented,

and this was where he wanted to work his whole life.

Cimolino: A lot of late nights here,

I would either be at home working,

or I'd be here working.

Wilson: You know, I married him because he could cook.

And then he went and got a day job,

and a night job, and a weekend job.

So guess who's been doing all the cooking?

Cimolino: She's a very good cook,

and I like to cook too,

but I just don't seem to have enough time.

So when I when I do get a chance

to do it, I love to do it.

Wilson: It's been difficult

sitting and waiting for him.

Cimolino: My daughter, she said to me, you know,

you were never at home, were you?

On balance, I was pretty much,

you know, equally married to the theater as to my family.

I wonder about that.

Wilson: We can get little snippets of time,

where we go away somewhere for him.

I look forward to the time when he can

not have to take those phone calls,

not have to worry.

It will be someone else who has to to sort it out.

Cimolino: I know what this life has been,

for almost 39 years now.

I want to find out what that other life is.

And you know, it's one thing when your children

are four and five and six,

they want you around.

When they're 30, 31 and 32,

you know, it's not the same thing.

So I may be late to that party.

¶ (soft music) ¶

Wilson: I remember having this conversation with him

at one point saying, you will have to exit.

You will have to walk out that stage door one more time,

and it will be the last time.

Cimolino: So, I just don't know what life

will be like without the festival.

I don't know what I'll do on a given day.

¶¶

The festival needs

a leader who loves it dearly.

Who is gentle

with the festival,

but at the same time has a strong vision.

And is bold in that vision, leads it into the future.

Donna Feore: I'm excited for the future of the place.

I think that,

there's new voices to be heard for sure,

and a different perspective.

Topham: I think that the Stratford Festival

will have a sort of

Cimolino-sized hole in it.

I think we won't know until he's gone,

quite how difficult it's going to be to replace him,

and I suspect that will reverberate over time.

Feore: The new artistic director

would do very wisely

to make sure they have an ongoing,

open and honest relationship with Antoni,

to pick his brain about everything on a daily basis.

Cimolino: I'm trying to prepare myself

for a future where I hear

so many fantastic things about Stratford,

that everything has its so much better

than it was under Cimolino's time.

That will make me happy.

And I will try to, you know, think that that wouldn't

have been possible, if I hadn't done what I'd done.

¶¶

McCormack: He leaves a legacy of

not just what he did or how it was,

but how it has to be done.

Arima: His DNA is in the walls,

and in the carpets.

One cannot think about the Stratford Festival,

without thinking about Antoni.

¶¶

Allison: He's managed to keep the legacy of it,

but also has reached for a future version,

where it opens up doors for the stories that get told.

A much more diverse, yes, but fascinating!

¶¶

Cimolino: I am preparing myself

for all of the painful moments that will come,

when I'm gone from this role.

Ouzounian: I'm sure there are gonna be universities

that are gonna offer him positions.

Does he want a lecture? Does he want to,

does he want to teach?

Guide more people?

Feore: This is actually

a place where we really need him.

Rooney: He's got a legacy as an artist.

He's got a legacy as an executive,

as a director and as a Shakespearean.

And I think that's absolutely unique.

Ouzounian: I'm sure there are theaters

that would probably say come and run it,

but what theater do you want to run,

after you've run the Stratford Festival?

Cimolino: I feel very lucky

that I was able to make the contribution,

that I was able to give to the festival.

I've worked with incredible people,

on a beautiful place.

If, in the years ahead, while there's breath in this body,

and the festival needs help in some way,

I will be answering that call.

¶¶

Do I feel satiated?

No. I don't feel satiated.

But I do feel

that I did my best.

¶¶

I'm the luckiest man on earth.

¶ (gentle melancholic music) ¶

¶¶

¶¶