Stratford Festival announces 11 shows for 2025 including ‘Anne of Green Gables’ and ‘Macbeth’

Prince Edward Island’s most famous orphan will soon head west to the Stratford Festival.
The repertory theatre company has announced that a new stage adaptation of “Anne of Green Gables,” the classic children’s novel by Lucy Maud Montgomery, is among the 11 shows in its 2025 season. The new Stratford Festival commission, to premiere at the Avon Theatre, will be written and directed by Kat Sandler, the multidisciplinary artist known for works like “Wildwoman” and “Yaga.”
Anne Shirley, however, isn’t the only orphan girl to feature in the new season. As previously reported by the Star, the Stratford Festival will also mount a new revival of “Annie,” the Tony Award-winning Broadway hit about another red-headed orphan. The family show is one of two musicals, along with “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,” that will anchor the offerings. 
That both “Anne of Green Gables” and “Annie” are programmed in the same lineup isn’t pure coincidence. The productions unveiled Wednesday all centre on the idea of harmony, along with the forces that amplify and oppose it, explained Stratford Festival artistic director Antoni Cimolino. 
“At this moment in time, the world is in a difficult state and we all long for a better place, an improvement and, ultimately, harmony,” said Cimolino in an interview with the Star. “And the season is also about second chances: the opportunity to makes things right.”
For the title characters in “Annie” and “Anne of Green Gables,” harmony is an ideal that they both seek. For the former, that means breaking free from her orphanage and the clutches of the wicked Miss Hannigan. And for Anne, harmony is making a home out of the new life she’s been given, living on a farm with Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert. 
Cimolino first started exploring that theme as he read “The Winter’s Tale,” one of Shakespeare’s late romance plays that concerns two childhood friends who are for years torn apart by jealousy before ultimately finding closure and reconciliation. 
“What fascinates me about the work is that the first part of the play feels like ‘Othello,’ like it’s going toward a very dark place, but then Shakespeare finds a way of changing the direction and leading it to something positive,” he said. 
Cimolino, entering his penultimate season at the helm of the company, will direct a new revival of the show next year at the Tom Patterson Theatre. The production has been a long time coming for the artistic director, who’s always wanted to lead the play but has yet to do so in his 37 years with the festival. 
“The Winter’s Tale” is one of a trio of Shakespeare productions scheduled for the festival’s 73rd season. At the Festival Theatre, the company’s largest stage, director Chris Abraham will lead “As You Like It,” Shakespeare’s popular pastoral comedy. Abraham, head of Crow’s Theatre in Toronto, is no stranger to the festival, most recently directing an acclaimed production of another Shakespearean comedy, “Much Ado About Nothing,” in 2023. 
Also returning to the festival next season is Robert Lepage, who will helm a new revival of “Macbeth” at the Avon Theatre. The Canadian director, who previously staged “Coriolanus” at the same venue in 2018, is setting his upcoming production in the milieu of Quebec’s biker gang wars. 
Aside from the trio of Shakespeare dramas, the 2025 season will largely be populated by literary adaptations. In addition to “Anne of Green Gables,” three other shows in the lineup are inspired by popular novels or memoirs. 
Daryl Cloran, artistic director of the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton, will direct Kate Hamill’s “Sense and Sensibility,” adapted from the popular Jane Austen novel of the same name. As well, an adaptation of Choderlos de Laclos’s “Les Liaisons Dangereuses,” directed by Esther Jun, is on the bill. The Festival Theatre will host both productions. 
Meanwhile, at the Tom Patterson Theatre, Theatre Calgary’s artistic director, Stafford Arima, will helm “Forgiveness.” The play by Hiro Kanagawa is based on Mark Sakamoto’s memoir, “Forgiveness: A Gift From My Grandparents,” about his family’s experiences during the Second World War. 
The third play scheduled for the Tom Patterson Theatre also touches upon the theme of war, which Cimolino notes is a secondary idea that recurs throughout the season. “Ransacking Troy,” a new work by Erin Shields, retells the epic stories of “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey” through the eyes of its female characters. Former Shaw Festival artistic director Jackie Maxwell will direct. 
The Stratford Festival’s smallest venue, the Studio Theatre, will host just one production in 2025: Yvette Nolan’s “The Art of War,” about a Canadian who is sent to the front lines of the Second World War as an embedded painter. Keith Barker, director of the festival’s new play development, will helm the production. 
The Stratford Festival’s current season, which includes productions of “Something Rotten!” and “Twelfth Night,” runs through mid-November. Casting and production dates have yet to be announced for the upcoming season.