Page 42 - 2018 Festival Edition

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It's mid-April and Stratford Festival executive direc- tor Anita Ga ney is sitting behind a desk in her o ce ready to take questions about the Tom Patterson Theatre project.
As the interview begins, Ga ney has some news to share.
“It's a good day to be here,” she says, “because the real estate deal closed today, so we own the property now.” There's a sense of joy and relief in Ga ney's voice as
she talks about clearing one of the biggest hurdles that will allow the Festival to demolish the old Tom Patterson Theatre, as well as other buildings on the expansive site that sits adjacent to the Avon River.
Time is precious if the $60-million project is going to be ready
for the 2020 season.
“If I was advising some- body on how to do this project I'd tell them to get the prop- erty secured first and get the funding, and there would be an order that
looked good on paper,” Ga ney said. “To get momentum behind a big project, you kind of need everything happen- ing at once. In order to move the property deal forward, we needed to have some momentum of donors behind
it and a design in place and the plan starting to come together.”
It's been known for some time that the original Tom Patterson Theatre would need to be replaced sooner rather than later.
Its lifespan of more than four decades had run its course, as confirmed by engineers who started raising red flags about the structure's stability as far back as 2002.
ON
CORY SMITH
Sta Reporter
The “enormous” project took many months of plan- ning, but at no time did Ga ney think it wouldn't move forward.
“I thought we could be delayed, but the (current) facil- ity was not going to be adequate for any length of time so something had to happen,” she said. “We have nostalgia about the current facility. It was fun, it was intimate, it brought lots of challenges behind the scenes, which was fun, but we needed a venue that was up to the standards of our other venues. Why wouldn't we take this opportu- nity to do something that can have a real seismic change for the Festival and the community?”
Once demolition is complete, what was left of the Tom Patterson Theatre will be an actual hole in the ground. The next step will be to pour the foundation for the new building, which is something that runs in the Ga ney family.
It was Oliver Ga ney – Anita's father – who owned the construction company that laid the foundation for the Festival Theatre more than 60 years ago.
“I don't know that I'm all that conscious of it,” she said. “It was a big risk for him to keep on building because
not only did he build this, but in 1953 the Festival wasn't able to pay him, so he continued working despite the fact he wasn't being paid and really working towards that deadline of opening night because he didn't want it to be someone from Stratford who let the enterprise down.
“Now I'm so fortunate and blessed to be in this posi- tion. I take it really seriously that the Festival needs to be able to develop and grow so it can continue to be impor- tant to the community, and the Tom Patterson Theatre is just one of many other things we're doing at the Festival to take care of the future.”
Financially, the reimagined theatre is expected to attract 52,000 new patrons annually, bringing an ad- ditional $14 million into the region's
economy each year.
On a functional level, the new building will give the Festival dif- ferent options while providing patrons with a more comfortable, user-friendly experience. One of the biggest di erences actors will notice is a trap door beneath the elongated thrust stage, which is a requirement in a number of Shakespeare plays.
“The challenge of this project was to create a modern, forward-looking facility without losing any of the beloved charm and intimacy of the original Tom Patterson The- atre,” project architect Siamak Hariri said. “The very core of this building is the theatre and the magic and wonder that it evokes. We allowed the soul and art of the perfor- mances to dictate the form and character of our design. We approached the design from the inside out – captur- ing the very heart of the Stratford Festival. An intimate space, connecting performer and patron in a shared experience – a new theatre that maintains the intimacy of the beloved Tom Patterson Theatre despite being slightly larger than its predecessor. The acoustical volume has been carefully sized to allow even the subtlest onstage murmurings to be easily audible in the last row, enabling audience members to focus their attention on the artistry of the performers.”
Hariri, a founding partner of Hariri Pontarini Archi- tects, said the Toronto-based company has designed lec- ture theatres as part of many of its institutional projects, including the Richard Ivey Building for the Richard Ivey School of Business at Western University.
“We relied on the intimate knowledge of the Stratford team, led by (artistic director) Antoni Cimolino, and worked in close consultation to tease out the nuances of their needs and translate them into architectural form,” Hariri said. “By engaging and drawing upon the experi- ence of world-renowned theatre consultant, Fisher Dachs Associates and Theatre Project Consultants, we were able to ensure that the unique and carefully crafted architecture resolved every detail elegantly, with acous- tics, sightlines, production and audience comfort each given careful consideration.”
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ANITA GAFFNEY
PAGE 42
THE BEACON HERALD | 2018 FESTIVAL EDITION