Stratford Festival's CORIOLANUS Touring To Dartmouth's Hopkins Center

The Stratford Festival is excited to announce that its production of Shakespeare's Coriolanus will enjoy an exclusive run at the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire.

Coriolanus will be presented Thursday, November 29, through Sunday, December 2, in four public performances and two school matinees at the Hop's Moore Theater.

"The opportunity to bring Coriolanus to the Hopkins Center is a special one," said Anita Gaffney, the Stratford Festival's Executive Director. "We are delighted to share this electrifying production with a new audience and to give our artists the chance to exchange ideas and perspectives with the Dartmouth community. This production of Coriolanus has been a smash hit for us and I anticipate that audiences at the Hop will find it as exciting and compelling as are audiences here in Stratford."

The Stratford Festival's "riveting" and "exhilarating" (The New York Times) production of Shakespeare's Coriolanus, directed by genre-defying theatre artist Robert Lepage, has been called "a landmark production for the Stratford Festival. Maybe for William Shakespeare, too" (The Globe and Mail), and "the greatest contemporary staging of this play that I have ever seen" (Chicago Tribune).

The production stars "André Sills, a magnetic and imposing actor" (The New York Times), with a stellar cast delivering "performances that send shivers down the spine" (The Globe and Mail).

Lepage takes the story about the rise and fall of a legendary general who must face off against the angry Roman mob and infuses it with the energy of Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring. "By resetting dialogue-heavy scenes as talk radio gabfests, and representing the uninformed mob as anonymous voices on social media, Robert Lepage helps clarify Shakespeare's portrait of a world, like ours, overwhelmed with insincerity" (The New York Times). He "wrangles a difficult play into a heart-stopping narrative" (Chicago Tribune), "rendering a clear and cinematic version that's riveting, invigorating and smart" (The Globe and Mail). "Rarely has Lepage's reputation as a cinematic theatremaker been more earned" (Toronto Star).

The transfer of this acclaimed production to Dartmouth has been made possible by Dan Bernstein - a Dartmouth alumnus and immediate past chair of the Festival's Board of Governors - and his wife, Claire Foerster.

"Dartmouth College and the Stratford Festival are organizations that carry out their missions with extremely high levels of excellence," said Bernstein, "and a core part of the mission of both organizations is context and understanding of the political and social environment. The Coriolanus production, and the many programming and education events that surround it, made for a perfect synergy of the strengths and mission of both organizations. Claire and I are thrilled to facilitate a collaboration of two organizations that are so meaningful to us, and we hope the relationship will continue in the future."

The Coriolanus run at the Hopkins Center will feature the original cast and a complement of Stratford crew members. A group of Festival staff will also be travelling to Dartmouth as part of a Stratford Festival residency, which will offer rich programming for the campus and the community, including screenings of other productions captured as part of the Stratford Festival HD initiative; workshops on classical acting and multimedia production design; and public discussions on the political themes running through Coriolanus and other Shakespeare plays.

"This transfer is a watershed moment for the Hop," said Mary Lou Aleskie, Director of the Hopkins Center. "We hope to transform the way we think about theater and education. We want to use this cutting-edge work as an opportunity for year-long conversation about the political themes of the play, about how technology can enhance theatrical storytelling, and how classical theater is relevant today."

Highlights of the Stratford Festival residency at Dartmouth include the following events, which are free unless noted:

· Oct. 23, 5 p.m.: Tweeting to the Populace: Roman Mobs and Modern Media, a public talk by Dartmouth public policy professor Charlie Wheelan.

· Nov. 1, 5 p.m.: Female Power in Shakespeare, from Taming of the Shrew to Coriolanus, a conversation between Stratford dramaturge Keira Loughran and Dartmouth English professor Tom Luxon.

· Nov. 2, 5 pm.: Bumps on the Road to Diversity: Color-Blind vs. Color-Conscious Casting, a discussion and Q&A with Keira Loughran and Dartmouth theatre faculty.

· Nov. 4, 4 p.m. (Loew Auditorium): HD Film Broadcast: The Stratford Festival's The Taming of the Shrew. $23.

· Nov. 5, 7 p.m.: Identity, Representation, and Casting in Contemporary Theater, Stratford actors Andre Sills and Alexis Gordon discuss the impact of race on their careers.

· Nov. 6, 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Teaching Shakespeare, a full-day workshop on teaching Shakespeare for high-school English and drama teachers, led by Stratford actors and educators. Free for teachers bringing students to a Coriolanus school matinee, $50 for others.

· Nov. 12, 5 p.m.: Breasts on the Battlefield: Gender Roles in Modern and Ancient War, a discussion between Dartmouth classics professor Roberta Stewart and Women and Gender Studies lecturer Brianne Gallagher.

· Nov. 27, 5 p.m.: Oh Mamma! Politics and Oedipal Complexes from Shakespeare to the Present, with Dr. Sarah Ackerman, Instructor in Psychiatry, Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine, and Prof. Jonathan Crewe, Dartmouth Emeritus Professor of English.

· Nov. 29, 5 p.m.: 21st Century Storytelling: The High-Tech Design and Transfer of Coriolanus, with CJ Astronomo, Stratford Festival Assistant Lighting Designer.

· Nov. 30, 7 p.m.: Opening Night Intro to the Stratford Festival & Coriolanus with Antoni Cimolino, Artistic Director of the Stratford Festival.

For more information on these and other events and to purchase tickets to the Hopkins Center performances of Coriolanus, visit www.hop.dartmouth.edu.

The Stratford Festival's run of Coriolanus has been extended until November 3. For more information about the production and to purchase tickets for the Stratford run, visit www.stratfordfestival.ca.

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