The Stratford Festival

Stratford Festival
The Festival Theatre
Genre	Repertory Theatre Festival
Dates	April to October
Location(s)	Stratford, Ontario, Canada
Years active	1953–present
Founded	1952
Website
stratfordfestival.ca

The Stratford Festival is an internationally recognized annual repertory theatre festival running annually from April to October in the city of Stratford, Ontario, Canada. Founded by local journalist-turned-producer Tom Patterson, the festival was formerly known as the Stratford Shakespearean Festival, the Shakespeare Festival and then Stratford Shakespeare Festival before changing to the current name. Theatre-goers, actors, and playwrights flock to Stratford to take part — many of the greatest Canadian, British, and American actors play roles at the Stratford festival. It was one of the first and is still one of the most prominent arts festivals in Canada and is recognized worldwide for its productions of Shakespearean plays.

The Festival's primary mandate is to present productions of William Shakespeare's plays, but it also produces a wide variety of theatre from Greek tragedy to Broadway style musicals and contemporary works. For some years, Shakespeare's work typically represented about a third of the offerings in the largest venue, the Festival Theatre. By 2017 however, only three of the 14 productions were Shakespeare's works.

The success of the festival dramatically changed the image of Stratford into one of a city where the arts and tourism play important roles in its economy. The festival attracts many tourists from outside Canada, mainly those British and American, and is seen as a very important part of Stratford's tourism sector.

The Festival was founded as the Stratford Shakespearean Festival of Canada, due mainly to Tom Patterson, a Stratford-native journalist who wanted to revitalize his town's economy by creating a theatre festival dedicated to the works of William Shakespeare, as the town shares the name of Shakespeare's birthplace. Stratford was a railway junction and major locomotive shop, and was facing a disastrous loss of employment with the imminent elimination of steam power. Patterson achieved his goal after gaining encouragement from Mayor David Simpson and the local council, and the Stratford Shakespearean Festival became a legal entity on October 31, 1952.