By Courtney Shea,

“We had to create two stages. One is at the Festival Theatre. The second is in the parking lot behind the Tom Patterson Theatre. We found a tent company in B.C. called Tentnology that makes beautiful open-sided tents. We’re selling tickets in groups of four, three, two or one. We’re hoping to accommodate 100 people, all masked, for each sitting…

At Stratford we pride ourselves on training actors to fill theatres of 1,800, but even the most talented actor can’t compete with a lawnmower. So we’re putting microphones on our actors for the first time. The most significant adjustment is that this will be the first time we’re not working in repertory. Instead, we’ll have eight totally separate shows with eight totally separate casts, separate lighting crews, separate wig makers…

[P]utting on a show for 100 people costs the same as putting on a show for 1,000. The new stages both cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and all the additional Covid protocol measures cost quite a bit. Our budget is $37 million, and we’re already planning a deficit of $4 million.”

Source: Toronto Life