Page 43 - 2018 Festival Edition

TOM PATTERSON
Theatre Project
Cimolino and Ga ney also gathered ideas through visits to various theatres around the world – in particular the Bridge Theatre in London, England, which opened in 2017 – and the eventual Tom Patterson design was presented to the community for further feedback that was incorporated into design details.
“As our first undertaking of a theatre of this scale, we approached this project with a design process grounded in rigorous research,” Hariri said. “Embracing the opportu- nity of solving new design challenges, our approach for the new Tom Patterson Theatre was unique and forward thinking, striving to create a facility that is unlike any that are currently available yet feels like it was always there.”
Designing a theatre is about designing an emotional experience and creating a memory, Hariri said. It's about intimacy, he added, and engagement with the audience.
Not only does that happen on the stage, but also outside of the theatre as part of a broader experience.
A grand garden terrace – raised six feet above road level – creates engagement with the Avon River that was miss- ing, and it allows the experience within to spill out while hiding the cars below.
The “breathtakingly beautiful” garden replete with tulip trees, purple irises and long grasses will stretch from one end of the property to the other, which Hariri hopes will become a local landmark and destination.
Inside the theatre's lobby, the curvilinear design creates quiet folds where patrons are sheltered from the current of activity.
“At the end, it is about magic,” Hariri said. “It looks easy, but that’s deceptive.”
Rebuilding the theatre is part of a new strategic plan that includes an emphasis on digital enhancements, Ga -
ney said. There will be space for the Festival's Forum and Laboratory, as well as digital media and educational activi- ties meant to attract and engage younger audiences.
It's a necessary pivot and a bold gamble Ga ney believes will pay o , much like the one Patterson made decades ago.
“You think of the crazy idea he had in 1952 to have a Shakespeare festival in southwestern Ontario – a big idea, put it out there – and he wasn't letting anything stop him from getting to that big idea,” she said. “He didn't know all the steps it was going to take to get there, but he had the idea and was relentless in seeing it come to fruition. I think it was a little bit of that same attitude of here's the big idea, here's what we want to do, let's start throwing everything we can at getting there.
“I really feel like the project five years from now every- body is going to be patting themselves on the back to say what a great idea they had. It's a bit of pain today to get
through that, but I really feel it's going to be the best thing for the community, so that's what keeps me going.”
Patterson, who died in 2005, would have turned 100 on June 11, 2020. By then, the new theatre that bears his name will be fully operational.
“It will be a really special season,” Ga ney said. “I think one of the things we have to manage over the next two sea- sons is we're really excited about 2020 and the potential of the new facility, but we don't want everyone to be waiting until 2020 to come. We want them to come in 2019 as well as 2018.”
When it opens its doors, Ga ney believes the theatre will become a focal point for the Festival.
She envisions being able to stage more plays like Bar- tholomew Fair, The Physicists, and Mary Stuart, which were too risky for the Festival Theatre's 1,800-seat space and too big for the Studio Theatre. She envisions the the- atre bringing the community together and adding a new dimension to the Stratford Festival.
It's not a matter of if, but when.
“The last two years have been about getting to today
... and now we're totally free to dream and imagine what the programming is going to be, what is the cafe going
to look like, where is the seating going to go, how is the building going to function, what does the education space look like and how are students going to use it, and what sort of things do we want to broadcast out of it to provide resources to teachers and their classroom but also a taste of what we do here in Stratford,” Ga ney said. “We don't have the plans fleshed out, but we're all really enjoying thinking about the possibilities.”
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THE BEACON HERALD | 2018 FESTIVAL EDITION
PAGE 43