Stratford Festival on Film but Canadian Opera Company Off the Airwaves

The Stratford Shakespeare Festival is going on tour... sort of. In October and November, the Festival will present screenings of films based on its 2011 production of Twelfth Night and its 2010 production of The Tempest, starring Christopher Plummer as Prospero.

Twelfth Night, which features Ben Carlson, Brian Dennehy and Stephen Ouimette, will be shown in Toronto at the exciting new Daniels Spectrum space in Regent Park (585 Dundas Street East) on Wednesday, October 10 at 7 p.m. Admission is free, and a post-film question-and-answer session with actors Cara Ricketts and Mike Shara follows at 9:45.

Twelfth Night will also be screened in Detroit on Sunday, October 14 at 3:30 p.m. at the Detroit Institute of Arts. A month later, the DIA will show the film version of The Tempest (Sunday, November 11, at 2 p.m.)

In addition, Stratford veteran Lucy Peacock will deliver a lecture titled "Prayer, Carnival: My Journey with Shakespeare" on Thursday, October 25 at 5:30 p.m. in Room 232 of the Leacock Building at Montreal's McGill University.

While the Stratford Festival will be able to extend its viewing audience beyond the walls of its own theatres this fall, the current season's productions by the Canadian Opera Company, formerly broadcast on radio via CBC Radio 2 and Radio-Canada's Espace Musique, will not be made available. The COC announced today that negotiations with the two unions representing the performers – Canadian Actors' Equity Association and the Toronto Musicians Association – have not come to a successful conclusion.

Since 2009, 21 COC productions have been broadcast over the airwaves and streamed internationally via the internet, earning about $200,000 per season in fees for the artists. The issue under debate was the COC's request to reduce fee payments to $150,000 for the current season.

Photo credit: Cylla von Tiedemann. From left: Tom Rooney as Malvolio, Cara Ricketts as Maria, Brian Dennehy as Sir Toby Belch and Juan Chioran as Fabian in the 2011 Stratford Festival production of Twelfth Night that was captured on film.