Romancing the Bard by Martin Hunter

Romancing the Bard by Martin Hunter

Romancing the Bardoffers a look at the Stratford Festival in its first fifty years as it developed from a bold venture driven by vision of a handful of eager enthusiasts to its present status as a multi-million dollar cultural and commercial enterprise. With profiles of Stratford personalities from founder Tyrone Guthrie to current artistic director Richard Monette, it provides glimpses of intrigue and conflict both offstage and on.

The book traces the development of a distinctive Canadian acting style, the soaring costs of production and design, the conflict between artists and moneymen, the external image promoted by publicists or imposed by critics and the changing mandate as the Festival assumes an increasingly populist character.

This is a celebration of a uniquely successful artistic enterprise, and focuses on some of the Festival's finest productions. Illustrated with photographs from the Festival archives.

Martin Hunter has worked as a child actor, a boy diplomat, a university professor, and an arts journalist, among other things. His first love is acting, and he has worked as an actor, director, writer, and producer in the theater. Hunter, the former artistic director of Hart House Theatre, has written a number of plays as well as radio dramas and documentaries for CBC Radio. He has authored two collections of essays and is the author of Romancing the Bard: Stratford at Fifty.