Shaw Festival announces 11 shows for 2027 season, including two musicals and a Stoppard satire

The repertory company in Niagara-on-the-Lake, which operates three venues, has previously produced two musicals in a single year — one as part of its main season and another in its slimmer holiday lineup — but 2027 will mark the festival’s first year with two musical productions running concurrently during its busy summer season. 

This doubling in the company’s musical offerings puts it on the same footing as the Stratford Festival, which for several decades has consistently presented two musicals each year. It also comes as the Shaw Festival has sought to expand its programming in recent years, including with the opening of a new artists’ village and a foray back into the Toronto theatre scene. 

“We have been thinking about expanding our musical offerings for many years now because I think we’ve really got better and better at doing musicals, and the reaction that we’re getting to ‘Funny Girl’ this year, and especially to the incredible performances in it, is kind of proof of that,” said artistic director Tim Carroll in an interview with the Star. “It will be an interesting experiment to see if people who really love musical theatre will be attracted to come down and see both our offerings, especially since they’re so contrasted.”

“South Pacific,” which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1950 and follows a group of Americans living on a fictional South Pacific island during the Second World War, will be directed by Nina Lee Aquino, artistic director of English theatre at the National Arts Centre. The production is to begin performances in April and run through the end of October.

“The Color Purple,” which begins performances later in June and runs through October, will be helmed by Kimberly Rampersad, the company’s associate artistic director. Both musicals are slated for the 854-seat Festival Theatre, the Shaw Festival’s largest venue. 

The two song-and-dance shows will also be joined by two straight plays at the Festival Theatre: director Jackie Maxwell’s production of “Arsenic and Old Lace,” a black comedy by Joseph Kesselring about two elderly women who go on a killing spree, and a revival of Tom Stoppard’s satire “Jumpers,” directed by Carroll. 

“‘Jumpers’ is probably the nearest to a bucket-list show that I will have done here,” said the artistic director. “I’ve always wanted to do a Tom Stoppard, and ‘Jumpers’ has always had a very close place to my heart. I saw it back when I was a student in 1985, and was absolutely dazzled.”

Bernard Shaw’s 1894 anti-war political satire “Arms and the Man,” last revived at the festival in 2014, will be the only show next year by the company’s namesake playwright. Directed by Alistair Newton, it will run in repertory at the Court House Theatre with Ira Levin’s comic thriller “Deathtrap,” the fairy tale-inspired “Grimm Tales,” and “The Rats and the Patient,” a double bill of one-act plays by Agatha Christie. 

Three other productions will also run at the smaller Jackie Maxwell Studio Theatre. First is J.M. Barrie’s “What Every Woman Knows,” a pre-suffrage comedy about a hapless man whose political success is all due to his wife. It’s set to run from May to October and will be directed by Rampersad. Starting performances later in June will be Spontaneous Theatre’s production of “Goblin:Pygmalion,” a retelling of Shaw’s most famous play, told by a trio of goblins. The final production to open at the venue will be director Philip Akin’s production of “Intimate Apparel,” a 2003 play by Lynn Nottage about a Black seamstress trying to make a living in early 20th-century New York City.

The festival’s main 2027 season will begin in March and run through the end of October. Casting for all 11 shows has yet to be announced. The company also said its 2027 holiday season, running from November to December, would be announced shortly.