THE FRONT PAGE Joins Stratford's 2019 Lineup In New Adaptation By Michael Healey

The Stratford Festival is amending its 2019 playbill to include the 20th-century classic The Front Page, one of the great satires about the world of journalism, by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur.

The play will be directed by Graham Abbey at the Festival Theatre and will replace The Man Who Came to Dinner. The Festival is commissioning playwright Michael Healey to adapt the original script. Healey also adapted The Physicists for the Festival's 2015 production.

"Written in 1928, in the heyday of the print era when Chicago had about half a dozen daily papers, this energetic farce affectionately lampoons journalistic hacks," says Artistic Director Antoni Cimolino. "These mountebanks and ambulance chasers will do anything for a story. And yet it becomes clear that despite their tawdriness they're the only ones able and willing to expose political corruption. Written by two former journalists who knew every trick and vice of their trade, it nevertheless is a satire which takes aim at much bigger issues such as the perversion of justice for political and financial gains. Everything old in this classic is new again."

Healey, a seasoned playwright whose recent foray into political satire, Proud, received tremendous accolades, will bring a modern perspective to the play, which Cimolino feels has much to say to today's audiences, particularly about the importance of outing the truth.

"In putting together the 2019 playbill Graham and I discussed a number of classic American comedies," says Artistic Director Antoni Cimolino. "Among them were both The Man Who Came to Dinner and The Front Page. The decision to produce the first of these titles was based upon some creative collaborations that haven't fallen into place. Consequently we took the opportunity to bring to the Festival stage one of the great comedies about journalism - The Front Page. This truly is a classic play for our times and I know Graham will bring this dynamic comedy to hilarious and satiric heights, just as Michael Healey will bring his biting wit to the adaptation."

This dark comedy-drama takes place in the press room of Chicago's Criminal Courts Building, overlooking the courtyard in which a supposed Communist agitator, Earl Williams, is to be hanged for the shooting of a black policeman. Reporters from all but one of the city's major newspapers are there, killing time as they await the 7 a.m. execution. The exception is Hildy Johnson, star reporter for the Examiner, who arrives only to announce that he's getting married and quitting the newspaper business. But Hildy's determination to seek a new life falters when Williams escapes from jail and clambers through the window into the office of which Hildy is now the sole occupant. Neither a Communist nor an intentional killer, Williams has become the unwilling pawn of corrupt local authorities - and Hildy is determined to get the story, even if it costs him the love of his life.

"I'm thrilled at the chance to bring this American classic from the roaring '20s to the Festival stage next season," says Abbey. "In many ways this play created the blueprint for generations of stage and film scripts to follow with its rapid-fire dialogue and vivid depiction of hard-nosed journalistic stereotypes. At its heart it is an examination and celebration of language - the power of the spoken and written word to uncover and expose the truth, and the possibility of the corruption of that truth under the guise of political ends. I can't think of a better time and place to re-examine this landmark play than in the current political climate with a company of seasoned classical actors, adapted by one of this country's great theatrical voices in Michael Healey."

The 2019 playbill will also feature Othello, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Billy Elliot the Musical, Little Shop of Horrors, The Neverending Story, The Crucible, Private Lives, Henry VIII, Mother's Daughter, Birds of a Kind and Nathan the Wise.

Meantime, the 2018 season is in full swing, featuring Julius Caesar, Napoli Milionaria! and Paradise Lost, which opened mid-August, along with The Tempest, The Comedy of Errors, Coriolanus, The Music Man, The Rocky Horror Show, Long Day's Journey Into Night, An Ideal Husband, To Kill a Mockingbird and Brontë: The World Without. The season runs until November 11. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit stratfordfestival.ca or call the box office at 1.800.567.1600.

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