The Shaw Festival is one of the largest repertory companies in North America, and the only theatre in the world that specializes in plays written by Bernard Shaw and his contemporaries (1856-1950): "plays about the beginning of the modern world." 

The season this year will start on April 1 and end November 1.

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Shaw Festival Box Office
1-800-511-SHAW (7429)

Another award-winning musical from Stephen Sondheim, a compelling story about love, art and inspiration. Spend Sundays in the park with the French impressionist painter Georges Seurat as he creates his masterpiece, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Hear from the figures in the painting about their lives and loves – especially Dot, the woman with the umbrella and Georges’ mistress and muse. A hundred years later, see his great-grandson, another artist, learn from the ghosts of the past.

Director: Alisa Palmer
Opens: April 1
Closes: November 1
Theatre: Royal George Theatre

Repressed love after a chance meeting at a train station; flaming passion from a single dance across the floor; mistaken identity following a passing holiday acquaintance – three different stories inspired by three brief moments in time. Each is a miniature delight only possible from the pen of Coward.

Director: Jackie Maxwell
Opens: April 11
Closes: October 24
Theatre: Festival Theatre

A philosopher, a religious leader, an artist, an actress and a King meet at Sir Isaac Newton’s house. The set-up for a joke? No, it’s Shaw’s Restoration  comedy, where everyone from George Fox, the founder of the Quakers, to Sir Godfrey Kneller the painter and, of course, King Charles II appear. They debate everything – from geometry to art to love potions – with occasional interruptions from three of Charles’s liveliest mistresses.

Director: Eda Holmes
Opens: April 17
Closes: October 9
Theatre: Royal George Theatre

The riveting tale of a stepmother who cares deeply for her daughters and a husband who cares more about money than his home and family. An undiscovered theatrical gem from the author of 'Rutherford and Son' and the Canadian premiere of a play written in 1924.

Director: Joseph Ziegler
Opens: April 28
Closes: October 9
Theatre: Court House Theatre

In Red Peppers, the backstage lives of a down-at-heel singing and dancing comedy act are almost as entertaining as their onstage routines. In Fumed Oak, Henry Gow has simply had enough – of his job, his family and his life – and tonight he’s finally going to make his move. In Shadow Play, music and fantasy combine in a story about a couple falling in and out of love – or are they? As one character opines, it would be so much easier, wouldn’t it, if we had music when things go wrong? It certainly is in these tuneful delights containing some of Coward’s most celebrated songs.

Director: Christopher Newton
Opens: June 9
Closes: October 31
Theatre: Royal George Theatre

It’s the height of the American Revolution and Dick Dudgeon – the black sheep son – is known as the Devil’s Disciple. When he is mistaken for a crusading minister and imprisoned by English forces, the question becomes, who is really the saint and who is the sinner? A comedy, an adventure and a love story, its first production in 1897 was so successful that Shaw was able to quit his day job as a critic.

Director: Tadeusz Bradecki
Opens: June 14
Closes: October 11
Theatre: Festival Theatre

Albertine in Five Times
by Michael Tremblay
A new translation by Linda Gaboriau

What would you say to your younger self if you had the chance? What if you met yourself 10, 20, 30 years in the future? Michel Tremblay takes his favourite character and puts her on stage with five versions of herself to talk to – five Albertines from ages 30 to 70. And she loves to talk. About her life, her marriage and her children with passion, honesty and humour. We present a new translation of this Canadian classic.

Director: Micheline Chevrier
Opens: June 24
Closes: October 10
Theatre: Court House Theatre

From love and heartbreak to farce via drama, this threesome demonstrates the full range of Coward’s genius. In The Astonished Heart, a patient’s obsessive love of her psychiatrist provokes disturbing results. In Family Album, after their father’s funeral, when the family gathers and the wine appears, family truths are finally revealed. And in Ways and Means, when a couple’s luck seems to have run out, they find it again with style and grace on the French Riviera.

Director: Blair Williams
Opens: July 21
Closes: October 11
Theatre: Court House Theatre

A brilliant exposé of 1950s postwar England seen through the eyes of fading music hall performer, Archie Rice. As we veer from gin-soaked family arguments to Archie’s increasingly desperate onstage turns, an England on a precipice is revealed, a nation unable to find its place in what is clearly a new world.

Director: Jackie Maxwell
Opens: July 31
Closes: September 20
Theatre: Studio Theatre

A committee of actors meets to discuss the refurbishment of Garrick Haven, a home for retired thespians. While the stage manager dutifully arrives on time, the rest of the group make their entrances more dramatically and the agenda is quickly forgotten as it’s clear that everyone would really rather talk about  themselves. With duelling divas, well-loved stories of past glories and the  appearance of a Great Dane, the meeting quickly falls into comic chaos. The final jewel in the Tonight at 8:30 crown.

Director: Kate Lynch
Opens: June 25
Closes: October 11
Theatre: Royal George Theatre