HAMLET, MARY POPPINS, and More Set For Stratford Festival's 75th Season

The Stratford Festival will celebrate its 75th season with a 13-production lineup that will bring together Shakespeare, major musicals, new Canadian work, family shows and large-scale historical drama in Artistic Director Jonathan Church's inaugural season. It is a slate that reflects both the traditions that have shaped Stratford since its first season in 1953 and the artistic curiosity that continues to drive it forward.

At the heart of the milestone season is Hamlet, opening on the Festival's anniversary date, July 13. The season will also feature Mary Poppins and Chicago; the Canadian premieres of Hilary Mantel's Tudor epics Wolf Hall (Part 1) and Bring Up the Bodies (Part 2); Eric McCormack in Noël Coward's Present Laughter; The Taming of the Shrew; Daniel David Moses's Almighty Voice and His Wife; the return of Kat Sandler's Anne of Green Gables; the world premiere of a new Canadian musical based on Mordecai Richler's Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang; and an ambitious three-play exploration of Jewish identity, memory and representation led by Saul Rubinek.

“One of the things that drew me to Stratford is the extraordinary range of work that can flourish here,” says Church. “There are very few theatre companies in the world where Shakespeare, major musicals, family theatre, new Canadian plays and large-scale historical drama can share the same season. That breadth is one of Stratford's great strengths and it is something I wanted to embrace in my first season as Artistic Director.”

“Since Jonathan's arrival at Stratford, he has brought enormous energy, curiosity and respect for this institution and its artists,” says Lawrence Stevenson, Chair of the Festival's Board of Directors. “His first season is ambitious in scale, broad in appeal and confident in what Stratford can be. It is both unmistakably Stratford and unmistakably his own. The Board could not be more pleased to see him begin his tenure in this landmark 75th season.”

Hamlet marks Stratford's 75th

Hamlet is the Shakespearean centrepiece of the 2027 season. Opening on July 13, the date of the Stratford Festival's inaugural performance in 1953, the production will stand at the heart of the Festival's 75th-season celebrations. Directed by former Stratford Festival Artistic Director Des McAnuff, known for productions of cinematic sweep and theatrical ambition, this Hamlet unfolds in postwar Europe amid a growing Soviet menace, in a world of glamour, political intrigue, surveillance and gathering danger.

Major musicals bring sparkle to the Festival Theatre

The ebullient musical Mary Poppins will enchant Stratford audiences with the glorious Vanessa Sears taking on the iconic role, hot off her triumphant portrayal of Juliet in & Juliet at Mirvish Entertainment in Toronto. Blowing in on the east wind to lead this heartwarming production are U.K. directors Jonathan O'Boyle and Stephen Mear. Their own enchantment with the Festival Theatre is inspiring the most elaborate flying sequences ever staged on the open stage. Mear, who helped make Mary Poppins an international stage phenomenon – and shared in an Olivier Award for that work – will also serve as choreographer.

Filled with beloved songs including “A Spoonful of Sugar,” “Chim Chim Cher-ee” and “Let's Go Fly a Kite,” Mary Poppins is a magical adventure for children and a joyful trip down Cherry Tree Lane for grown-ups who secretly still know all the words to “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.”

The Festival will have a special pre-sale opportunity for this highly anticipated production of Mary Poppins. Registration for it can be found at stratfordfestival.ca

Joining Hamlet and Mary Poppins at the Festival Theatre is the sexy, seductive musical Chicago. Directed and choreographed by Donna Feore, this thrilling production will combine electrifying dance, unforgettable characters and the dynamic musical storytelling for which Feore is famous. Featuring an iconic score packed with Broadway favourites including “All That Jazz,” “Cell Block Tango” and “Razzle Dazzle,” Chicago is a dazzling celebration of fame, ambition and the power of a good story.

Feore originally staged Chicago in 2022 as the Festival's first foray into full musical production after the pandemic shutdown, when audiences were still required to wear masks. It was met with such an electrifying response that Church wanted to share it with an even wider audience now that people are enthusiastically returning to the theatre. The production was a Globe and Mail Critic's Pick, praised in The New York Times for its original choreography, and described by the Chicago Tribune as “an audience-pleasing doozie” with “amped up razzamatazz.” Feore has even more in store for 2027.

Jonathan Church makes his Stratford directorial debut with Wolf Hall

Jonathan Church's Stratford directorial debut will be at the Avon Theatre, where he will stage a two-part epic, the Canadian premieres of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, Mike Poulton's acclaimed adaptations of Hilary Mantel's bestselling novels about power, ambition and survival in the Tudor court. These celebrated plays chart the astonishing rise of both Thomas Cromwell and Anne Boleyn during the tumultuous reign of Henry VIII.

Church has directed celebrated productions around the world, including another two-part epic Nicholas Nickleby, which became a sold-out sensation at the Chichester Festival, transferred to the West End and toured across the U.K. and to Toronto. The two parts of Wolf Hall return him to that expansive theatrical scale and promise to be presented in truly magnificent proportions. The two productions have been scheduled throughout June, July and August to allow audiences to see both on consecutive days, or in many cases on the same day.

Eric McCormack returns

Eric McCormack returns to Stratford to play the lead role of Garry Essedine in the Noël Coward comedy Present Laughter. Directed by Richard Ouzounian, returning for his 13th season, the production will run at the Avon Theatre from early October to the end of November. Overflowing with glamour, romance and comic chaos, Present Laughter is a joyous celebration of friendship, celebrity and the delightful madness of show business, crackling with sexual tension and filled with Coward's sparkling bon mots. McCormack, who has a string of successes on the stage and screen, began his career with five seasons at the Festival in the 1980s before rising to stardom in the hit series Will & Grace.

Saul Rubinek leads three plays in conversation

Saul Rubinek, one of Canada's great actors, returns to the Festival for the first time since 1969 with an extraordinary three-play theatrical conversation conceived around Shylock, Jewish identity and his own family history.

Rubinek will appear in The Merchant of Venice, Playing Shylock and his new play, All in the Telling. Together, the three works trace a compelling arc: from Shakespeare's Shylock, to a contemporary actor confronting the character and his legacy, to a playwright drawing directly on his own family's history offering distinct perspectives on Jewish identity across generations.

The Merchant of Venice will be directed by Chris Abraham. Playing Shylock, written by Mark Leiren-Young, will be directed by Martin Kinch and produced in association with Starvox Entertainment. All in the Telling, by Saul Rubinek, is being developed in collaboration with Starvox Entertainment and Crow's Theatre and directed by Crow's Artistic Director Chris Abraham. This will be the play's world premiere.

The idea for this triptych of plays grew out of the highly successful Toronto and Off-Broadway runs of Playing Shylock, which is set in the aftermath of the fictional cancellation of a production of The Merchant of Venice. Presenting the two works alongside one another places Shakespeare's play and its complicated legacy in direct theatrical conversation. The addition of Rubinek's new play, All in the Telling, which draws on his experience as the son of Holocaust survivors from Poland, extends that conversation from representation to lived memory.

The performance schedule allows audiences to experience the three plays in combination, including opportunities to attend The Merchant of Venice and Playing Shylock together and a remarkable opportunity to see all three productions in a single day.

Canadian works – including a new musical – take centre stage

At the Tom Patterson Theatre, a thrilling theatrical event: the world premiere of the new Canadian musical Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang, based on the beloved Mordecai Richler children's book, with music and lyrics by Stratford sisters Anika Johnson and Britta Johnson and book by David S. Craig.

Workshopped over the past three years, the production is produced in partnership with Theatre Calgary and will be directed by Theatre Calgary Artistic Director Stafford Arima, whose production of Forgiveness was at the heart of the 2025 Tom Patterson season. Joining Arima on the production is award-winning choreographer Jesse Robb, who, like Arima, works on Broadway, internationally and here at the Festival. Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang, the first musical to be presented at the new Tom Patterson Theatre, brings a cherished story to life, offering a joyful introduction for a new generation of fans and a nostalgic return to a treasured Canadian favourite.

The Avon Theatre will see the return of Kat Sandler's runaway hit adaptation of Anne of Green Gables. Commissioned by the Festival and first presented here in 2025, this truly delightful production, directed by Sandler, will touch down in September for a three-week run before heading out to further Canadian climes. Critics and audiences alike embraced the production on its debut, making it the season's hot ticket. The Globe and Mail called it “the show you absolutely, categorically cannot miss,” while a Toronto Star critic who admitted he “didn't think we needed yet another adaptation” found himself won over “in mere minutes,” and ultimately declared the production “unmissable.”

At the Studio Theatre, Yvette Nolan directs Daniel David Moses's ground-breaking play Almighty Voice and His Wife, a love story between two Cree people living in the colonial upheaval of Saskatchewan in the 1890s. The play, inspired by the story of famed Cree resistance fighter Kisse-Manitou-Wayou (“Almighty Voice”), becomes in its second half a vaudevillian dreamscape, a transformative fantasia representing the ways in which Indigenous people were misrepresented, romanticized and erased by settler society, expanding a deeply personal love story into an exploration of memory, representation and Indigenous resilience.

Shakespeare spans the 2027 season

Joining Hamlet and The Merchant of Venice is The Taming of The Shrew, directed by Krista Jackson at the Tom Patterson Theatre, in a production that will draw Shakespeare's comedy into today's world of reality TV, where, as in the original text, a carefully crafted reputation is everything and public opinion must be cultivated. The spirited couple at the play's heart, the fiercely independent Katherina and the swaggering bachelor Petruchio, are certain to ignite the stage with their fiery battle of wills. Jackson will bring her keen comic eye to the production, which promises to satirize the marriage market just as delightfully as her sparkling 2026 production of The Importance of Being Earnest.

Earlier performance times for 2027

In response to changing audience habits, the Festival is moving to earlier start times for performances in 2027, with matinees starting at 1:30 and evening performances at 7:30, with the inclusion of some early matinees beginning at noon, particularly for school audiences.

Stratford productions reach audiences across Canada

As Church looks to partnerships nationally and internationally, the Festival is collaborating with other Canadian theatres on a number of productions in the 2027 season and several Stratford premieres from recent seasons will be appearing on stages beyond Stratford.

“One of the joys of making theatre at Stratford is seeing that work find new audiences beyond our stages,” says Church. “Four productions that began their lives here under Antoni Cimolino's leadership will now move on to other theatres, giving people across the country the opportunity to experience them. This season sees us partnering in various ways with the Citadel in Edmonton, Crow's and Mirvish in Toronto, the National Arts Centre in Ottawa and Theatre Calgary, relationships I hope will thrive.”

The King James Bible Play, by Charlotte Corbeil-Coleman, a Stratford Festival commission, which will soon wrap up its sold-out run here, will be presented at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa from November 11 to 21, 2026.

The Diviners, based on the novel by Margaret Laurence, with text by Vern Thiessen with Yvette Nolan, commissioned and first presented at the Festival in 2024, will be presented at the National Arts Centre from January 12 to 23, 2027.

Salesman in China, by Leanna Brodie and Jovanni Sy, a Stratford Festival commission first presented in 2024, will be presented by Mirvish Productions at Toronto's Royal Alexandra Theatre from June 8 to July 25, 2027.