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FOREWORD

There is so much to do in Stratford that a person could be forgiven for only scratching its surface by seeing a great play. After all, how many places have an internationally known Shakespeare festival? But in this book you’ll find ways to enrich your experience of Stratford, dive deep into its many delights, and make the theatre-going even more irresistible.

Antoni Cimolino

Artistic Director

Stratford Festival

“Put some flowers in front. Shows people there’s civilization there.” The remark is attributed to James Anderson, first Archivist-Administrator of the Stratford-Perth Archives and a passionate advocate for local culture and heritage. If he did indeed say that, then he was on to something.

We judge the quality of life in a city not only by the state of its sidewalks and its sewers, its industrial and commercial vigour, or the efficiency with which its municipal services are delivered — key markers though all those attributes are — but also by the ways in which it makes itself beautiful, spiritually nourishing, and vibrant with life. A city that cultivates beauty, a city buzzing with intellectual and creative energy, is a city worth spending time in.

Stratford is such a city, and not only because of its internationally renowned theatre festival. The flowers of civilization burgeon and blossom in countless other corners of this unique community; their roots run deep.

In these pages, Phyllis Hinz and Lamont Mackay gather together Stratford’s richly varied cultural blooms — its artistic endeavours, its architecture, its history, its traditions — into a single convenient bouquet. But in doing so, they reveal something more: a whole cultural ecology, interconnected and mutually sustaining. And one that will always be sprouting new buds.

Welcome to Stratford. There’s civilization here.

David Prosser

Literary and Editorial Director

Stratford Festival