- Stratford Shakespeare Festival Artistic Director Des McAnuff
August 13, 2008
Canada’s Stratford Shakespeare Festival is mixing Sondheim and Shakespeare for its 2009 season. The festival announced Tuesday that it will present two new productions of West Side Story and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum as part of its line-up next year.
“These two musicals would not exist without William Shakespeare,” says Festival artistic director Des McAnuff. “Arthur Laurents, Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim based West Side Story on Shakespeare’s masterpiece Romeo and Juliet, and Burt Shevelove, Larry Gelbart and Stephen Sondheim were heavily influenced by Shakespeare’s multiple-plot, Plautine farce A Comedy of Errors when writing Forum. There is no question that these two musicals play legitimate roles in the classical theatre repertoire and I am very proud that we are producing them side by side.”
McAnuff, who directed the Tony Award-winning musical Jersey Boys, will helm A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. McAnuff previously directed the Broadway musical Big River, which won seven Tonys, including best director. Jersey Boys won four Tonys, including best musical of 2006. McAnuff also won a pair of Olivier awards for the London production of The Who’s Tommy.
This will mark the first time that A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum has been staged at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. The musical combines aspects of the 2,000-year-old comedies of the Roman playwright Plautus with classic vaudeville humor.
The musical, which features the hit song “Comedy Tonight”, is the story of Pseudolus, a slave in ancient Rome who will do anything to win his freedom. With book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart, Forum was the first Broadway musical for which Stephen Sondheim wrote both music and lyrics.
Sondheim also wrote the lyrics for the Festival’s other 2009 musical, West Side Story, with music by Leonard Bernstein and book by Arthur Laurents.
Chicago Shakespeare Theater associate artistic director Gary Griffin will make his Stratford festival debut as the director of West Side Story. Mr. Griffin made his Broadway debut directing Oprah Winfrey’s production of The Color Purple.
The festival has staged West Side Story only once before in 1999. Based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story is set in New York, where two rival gangs, the Jets and the Sharks, wage a war fuelled by racial intolerance.
Web Resources:
