St. Lawrence Shakespeare Festival

The tradition & historical record

The St Lawrence Shakespeare Festival (SLSF) runs annually in Prescott, Ontario in July and August. SLSF contracts professional actors through Canadian Actors Equity Association, is a member of PACT (the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres), and a member of the Shakespeare Theatre Association. The offerings of the Festival are based on two main stage shows that run from mid-July to mid-August (often, but not always, both plays by Shakespeare) as well as additional productions that are presented in shorter runs of fewer performances. SLSF was founded in 2002, when Artistic Director Deborah Smith brought a small touring production of Romeo and Juliet through Prescott for a single performance. During that visit, Smith saw the open-air amphitheatre that had been constructed overlooking the harbour, and made arrangements with then mayor, Sandra S. Lawn (after whom the harbour is now named) to return the following year, 2003, to mount a full production of The Tempest. Three Artistic Directors have followed. Ian Farthing, who had acted with the Festival, was appointed in 2005 and held the position until 2014. Farthing increased the number of mainstage productions from one to two, added a Sunday series of special events and an educational program.

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “St Lawrence Shakespeare Festival”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence.

St. Lawrence Shakespeare Festival is theatre festival in Prescott, Ontario, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ¹