The Sunday Read: Interview - Jackie Maxwell, Artistic Director, Shaw Festival

(photo credit: David Cooper)

Re-Oxygenating the Shavian Flame

Celebrating her 10th season as Artistic Director for the Shaw Festival, Jackie Maxwell talks Ragtime, voices in theatre, and defining the next 50 years of the iconic Shaw. 

by Christian Baines

CHARPO: With another month or so to go for this year’s Shaw, how has the season treated you so far?

MAXWELL: This season has been pretty good, actually. We have all the attendance difficulties that everybody has in terms of the general shifting of the world in the context of economics and all of that. But Ragtime, our big musical – which is kind of leading us not only this season but into our next years if you like, because this is our 51st season – really has done extraordinarily well. It’s always great to have a big signature piece kicking like that. Our Shaws, I’m glad to say did very well, as did Hedda Gabler and His Girl Friday. So there are always ups and downs within a season, but we’ve had a really strong showing. Artistically, I feel very good about the season. I think the company’s in good, strong shape. It’s always hard. Every week you’re always counting the box office,  funds raised and things like that, but everybody’s doing that. 

Review: (Shaw Festival) Ragtime

Eden Kennedy and Jay Turvey (photo credit: David Cooper)

The Music of Something Beginning

Shaw’s Ragtime explodes off the stage

by Dave Ross and Stuart Munro

Our weekend in Niagara-on-the-Lake has come to a close with the Shaw production of the Tony Award winning Ragtime. This extraordinary work by composers Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens, and author Terrence McNally narrates the changing face of America “as the twentieth century emerges.” We follow three families: the white middle-class of family of New Rochelle, known only by their familial designations; the African-American struggle of Coalhouse, Sarah, and their young son; and the newly arrived immigrants from Eastern Europe, Tateh and his daughter, the little girl. Over the course of three hours their paths are slowly intertwined to become one story.

Theatre for Thought, August 27, 2011

George Bernard Shaw vs. Terror and Pity

Whatever you think of Shawfest, it should always be applauded for single-handedly keeping Shaw’s work alive in North America.

joel fishbane

Reviews: (Shaw Festival) Heartbreak House; On The Rocks

Politicians making speeches they cannot deliver on. Police cracking heads. Chekhov. Burglars. It's Shaw Fest!

by Byron Toben