Latest news with #ShawFestival
Hamilton Spectator
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Hamilton Spectator
With $110 million raised, Shaw Festival two-thirds of way to fundraising goal
Shaw Festival organizers announced last week that the once more quiet effort to raise $150 million is now an open campaign — something for the world to know about. The organization announced the creation of the campaign, which is the newest phase of their long-standing fundraising efforts with the goal of building numerous brand new arts facilities in Niagara-on-the-Lake. The slogan refers to a common refrain in theatre to encourage everyone in the room to join in the play or the song. The idea of the campaign is to promote the idea that the theatre brings people together and doesn't isolate them. Tim Carroll, the artistic director of the Shaw Festival, said that he hopes this idea inspires people to support the organization in what Shaw Festival executive director Tim Jennings said was the 'most significant cultural investment in Niagara in the last 100 years.' 'This fundraising effort has been going on since I was here (in 2017),' said Carroll. 'We had been raising money quietly but we hadn't launched the campaign until now. …We will be raising money from everyone and not just the people who knew about it.' The efforts to raise money through government and private fundraising before the campaign started has resulted in $110 million already having been raised. This leaves $40 million to go. The Government of Ontario said they were giving $35 million to help rebuild the Royal George Theatre back in April. The federal government has also given $15 million for the development of the Artists' Village. The Shaw Festival is also waiting to hear from the federal government about funding for the Royal George Theatre. The rest came from private donations. These include larger donors like the James A. Burton and Family Foundation and Tim and Frances Price, as well as members of the public who wish to donate to the Shaw Festival. The Shaw Festival's efforts centre around two main projects. The first is to take down and restore the Royal George Theatre, a 110-year-old theatre in the Historic Old Town which is set demolished due to age and disrepair. The second is to create a new campus called the Artists' Village, which is an expansion of the Festival Theatre. They will renovate five decommissioned buildings in the Old Upper Canada Lodge that will be used for seasonal housing for Shaw actors, classrooms, performance spaces, and studios. The feature of the Artists' Village particularly singled out for mention by the Shaw Festival is the Burton Centre for Lifelong Creativity, which is meant to be a place where people from all walks of life are encouraged to come to be creative. As per the theme of the campaign, one of the major aims for the centre is for it to be a place that can reduce isolation for more than one million seniors by 2030. The Artists' Village will open to the public in May 2026, though Jennings said some outdoor work will continue throughout 2026. The festival's aim is to demolish the Royal George Theatre in 2026 with the new theatre to open in Fall 2028. The Shaw Festival also has an offshoot idea from called the Movement for Real Human Connection. Carroll says this phrase 'tells you what we're really about,' which is using drama to bring people together. The Shaw Festival is the organization that runs an internationally known summer-long festival, named after famous Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw. It puts on plays in Niagara-on-the-Lake from spring until winter each year. The festival's website says 10 or more productions are shown in three theatres to an audience of around 250,000 people each year. The festival was founded in 1962. Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
Globe and Mail
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Globe and Mail
An underpowered Anything Goes taps into a bygone era's penchant for tap dancing
Title: Anything Goes Written and choreographed by: Kimberley Rampersad Performed by: Mary Antonini, Celeste Catena, Jeff Irving, Allan Louis, Michael Therriault, Shawn Wright Company: Shaw Festival Venue: Festival Theatre City: Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont. Year: Until Oct. 4, 2025 Modern productions of pre-Golden Age musicals can remind you just how young the form is. Born at the crossroads of vaudeville, operetta and minstrelsy, musical theatre as we understand it today – a cousin of opera, a neighbour to non-musical drama – hasn't even cracked 150 years. At the same time, the genre has also evolved quickly since the 1890s. A hit musical now – Maybe Happy Ending, for instance, about two robots in a futuristic Seoul, or Dear Evan Hansen, about an anxious teen in suburban America – tends to bear little resemblance to the early milestone works that paved the way to its existence. Musicals these days are more often sung-through without much spoken dialogue, and, on a good day, the music and story inform each other in a way that feels satisfying and dramaturgically robust. Anything Goes, first produced on Broadway in 1934, somewhat epitomizes musical theatre's relative youth – and the speed at which the form has grown up. The show contains some of Cole Porter's greatest hits, jazz standards including You're the Top, Blow, Gabriel, Blow and, of course, that eponymous toe-tapper laced with clever rhymes. But the book, by P.G. Wodehouse, Guy Bolton, Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, hasn't aged as gracefully as the songs tucked between its scenes. Plots are thin; characters thinner. Shaw Festival raises $110-million for facility renovations, Royal George Theatre revamp Sure, none of that matters when the songs are performed with aplomb – when the dance numbers ooze with precision and razzle-dazzle. Alas, the Shaw Festival's production of Anything Goes only occasionally compensates for the material with its choreography and performances. Kimberley Rampersad's tap numbers are often out of sync, the sounds muddy as the dancers' shoes scrape across the stage; the cast, too, occasionally struggles to sing while dancing, panting as they spit out Porter's lyrics. And while the production uses an updated script – add Timothy Crouse and John Weidman to the show's laundry list of book-writers – Anything Goes neither feels like a hazy time capsule of the 1930s nor a retrospective riff on the era's penchant for sensationalism. In her director's note, Rampersad says she crafted the production as a 'response to and in resistance to the darkness in this world,' and when all the musical's moving pieces come together, indeed, the outside world feels deliciously far away. But those moments are few and fleeting. Shaw Festival reports operating surplus just one year after largest deficit in its history When we meet nightclub singer Reno Sweeney (Mary Antonini), she's aboard a ship heading to London. So is Billy Crocker (Jeff Irving), a Wall Street broker in love with Hope Harcourt (Celeste Catena). Small problem, one reminiscent of another famous story about a boat crossing the Atlantic: Hope is set to marry Lord Evelyn Oakleigh (a standout Allan Louis), a Brit whose inability to recall American slang will be his downfall. Obviously, hijinks ensue – the dastardly Moonface Martin (Michael Therriault) is also on the ship, as is Billy's boss, Elisha Whitney (Shawn Wright). It's a simple story that's mostly well-acted by Rampersad's cast – Irving's Billy is perhaps the strongest of the bunch, adding depth to the character as needed and belting out fabulous high notes as he comes to terms with his feelings for Hope. Antonini's Reno – the brassy, belting diva of the high seas – is a trickier affair. At the matinee I attended, Antonini appeared to struggle with Anything Goes' titular crowd-pleaser, the Act One closer Sutton Foster so memorably nailed at the 2011 Tony Awards. On Wednesday, musical notes got lost in the shuffle of Rampersad's shuffles, time steps and cramp rolls, the slurry of taps overpowering and chaotic. I was underwhelmed – by Antonini's performance and by Rampersad's choreography, which doesn't seem to leave ample space for Antonini to catch her breath. But I sure changed my tune when Blow, Gabriel, Blow rolled around in the second act, a song better suited to Antonini's range, and with soft-shoe choreography that better allowed Antonini to shine as the production number's star. It's not often Anything Goes isn't the highlight of Anything Goes – but Rampersad and Antonini's work on Blow, Gabriel, Blow makes a convincing argument for the latter song's longevity. There are other highlights of the Shaw Festival's centrepiece musical: Cory Sincennes's costumes drip with vintage luxury, with sequins and beads that catch Mikael Kangas's blazing lights. Sincennes's nifty set, too, makes a lovely playground for Rampersad's cast, a spinning hub of maritime machinery and attractive staircases. Of course, your mileage may vary with this Anything Goes – as a former tap dancer myself, I'm perhaps more sensitive to the production's choreography and resulting issues than the average audience member. But at its best, Anything Goes ought to be a dazzling display of musical punch and pizzazz, a relic of an increasingly under-produced era of musical theatre; on Wednesday, it was, all in all, just fine. To make the inevitable comparison to another tap show set in the 1930s now playing just a few hours away: It ain't no Annie.
CTV News
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CTV News
Shaw Festival has raised 70 per cent of $150M goal to reinvent theatre institution
An artist rendering design of a replacement for the Royal George Theatre in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., is shown in this handout image. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Shaw Festival, Unity Design Studio **MANDATORY CREDIT** The Shaw Festival says it's raised 70 per cent of the $150 million it needs to reinvent the theatre institution's role in southern Ontario. Artistic director Tim Carroll says the $110 million the festival has raised so far comes from a combination of the province, the federal government and private donations. He says they're now soliciting donations more broadly because they see the finish line in sight. The Shaw Festival in Niagara-On-The-Lake, Ont., plans to expand its footprint with an artists' village beside the current Festival Theatre that will include performance and classroom spaces. The organization also plans to create a new downtown campus, including a new theatre to replace the crumbling Royal George Theatre. The Shaw says it wants to create a community hub that brings people together and encourages deeper engagement with the theatre. Carroll says theatregoers are already inspired by what they see on stage, and the Shaw plans to foster that inspiration. 'In future you will come to 'Anything Goes,' and then you can go and take a tap dance class, or you can come to a comedy show and you can then go and take an improv class or a comedy class,' he said Monday. He said it will go beyond performance — there will also be classes for technical theatre skills such as scene design. 'We want everyone to be able to find where their joy is and to be able to release their own artist,' Carroll said. This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 26, 2025. Nicole Thompson, The Canadian Press
Winnipeg Free Press
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Shaw Festival has raised 70 per cent of $150M goal to reinvent theatre institution
The Shaw Festival says it's raised 70 per cent of the $150 million it needs to reinvent the theatre institution's role in southern Ontario. Artistic director Tim Carroll says the $110 million the festival has raised so far comes from a combination of the province, the federal government and private donations. He says they're now soliciting donations more broadly because they see the finish line in sight. The Shaw Festival in Niagara-On-The-Lake, Ont., plans to expand its footprint with an artists' village beside the current Festival Theatre that will include performance and classroom spaces. The organization also plans to create a new downtown campus, including a new theatre to replace the crumbling Royal George Theatre. The Shaw says it wants to create a community hub that brings people together and encourages deeper engagement with the theatre. Carroll says theatregoers are already inspired by what they see on stage, and the Shaw plans to foster that inspiration. 'In future you will come to 'Anything Goes,' and then you can go and take a tap dance class, or you can come to a comedy show and you can then go and take an improv class or a comedy class,' he said Monday. He said it will go beyond performance — there will also be classes for technical theatre skills such as scene design. 'We want everyone to be able to find where their joy is and to be able to release their own artist,' Carroll said. This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 26, 2025.
Toronto Star
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Toronto Star
Shaw Festival 2025: What shows to see — and skip — this season
From a new adaptation of a classic 'Narnia' story to a revival of the beloved Cole Porter high-seas musical 'Anything Goes,' there's no shortage of offerings at this year's Shaw Festival. The repertory theatre company in Niagara-on-the-Lake is presenting 10 mainstage productions for its 63rd season, which runs through December. Here's a comprehensive guide of what to see — and skip — this year. Anything Goes
