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Canada's first big Shakespeare festival, held at Stratford (Ont.), came to an end last week, a thunderous success. Casting up accounts after the final performance, the slightly dazed promoters found that their festival had drawn 53,600 Canadian and U.S. theatergoers to their little farm-area city of 19,000. In their most optimistic moments they had hoped for a 60% capacity attendance; the festival played to 97% of capacity for its entire run. Enthusiastic visitors poured $190,000 through the box office and spent another $1,000,000 in the town.
Credit went with the cash. No Canadian theatrical event had ever attracted such critical attention and acclaim. Drama critics flocked to the opening night (TIME, July 27) from most of the important U.S. and Canadian newspapers and magazines and went away chorusing praise for British Star Alec Guinness and Actress Irene Worth, the Canadian cast, and the direction of Tyrone Guthrie, from London's Old Vic. Wrote Author Nicholas (The Cruel Sea) Monsarrat, a guest critic for the Ottawa Citizen: "You can rate [it] with . . . the Passion Play at Oberammergau or with the yearly season of plays at Stratford on Avon." The New York Times's Brooks Atkinson called the festival "a genuine contribution to Shakespeare."
Only a few weeks before its smash opening, the festival had looked like a spectacular flop. Before a single ticket had been sold, the committee was more than $100,000 in debt for the experimental tent theater. Production costs soared to $220,000. Promotor Tom Patterson, the Stratford magazine editor who first thought of the festival, had been able to collect only $40,000 from local contributors.
Just when things looked blackest, Stratford's interest in its own festival finally caught on. Civic groups and private donors came through with $155,000 in gifts. Tickets sold so fast after the plays began that the original five-week season had to he extended to six. As a result, there will be enough cash left over to set up a permanent organization to make the festival an annual affair in Canada's Stratford.