From Nationalist to Multinational: The Stratford Festival, Free Trade, and the Discourses of Intercultural Tourism

Abstract

The Stratford Story, it is called,' particularly story of Festival's founding, has been told and retold in Canada, most often under auspices of Festival's official discourse, where it not surprisingly functions, like a kind of institutional autobiography, justification. According to this narrative, Festival's first opening night on July 13, 1953-which Herbert Whittaker, who has been called dean of Canadian theatre critics, called the most exciting night in history of Canadian theatre2--was a culmination in a long teleological process in nation and its theatre,3 an event as momentous for Canada founding of Old Vic was for England, or Abbey Theatre for Dublin.4 Full maturity was reached eleven