Stratford Festival's exiting leader Antoni Cimolino reflects on his rollercoaster 14 years as artistic director

One day, as Cimolino was preparing to engage in a sword fight with Ouimette’s Hamlet, his mind began to wander. “I was on stage, with sword in hand, and thinking, ‘Did I return that call?’” he recounted.

It didn’t take long for Cimolino to regain his focus. Yet that momentary mental lapse was enough to leave him shaken. “I thought: ‘Get off the stage because you’re going to kill someone.’”

Monette’s “Hamlet” would be the last show in which Cimolino appeared as an actor in the Stratford company. But that terrifying moment ultimately clarified Cimolino’s calling and set him on his path into arts leadership — first as a theatre director, then into more senior roles, including as Stratford’s general manager, general director, executive director and finally artistic director, a role in which he steered and set the tone for one of the most important theatre companies in the world.

Now, in the midst of his final season, Cimolino is reflecting on his run as artistic director and what’s to come in the next chapter of his career. “I’ve been in denial,” Cimolino shared, speaking with the Star over lunch at the Bruce Hotel, a few blocks away from his office at the Festival Theatre. “I love the people at the festival. I love the festival itself. So, it’s going to be hard.” 

Cimolino’s 14 years at the helm of the company was transformative. He placed greater emphasis on the development of new Canadian works, established the Meighen Forum and spearheaded the redevelopment of the Tom Patterson Theatre, ushering the beloved but dilapidated venue into the 21st century. As well, he guided the company through the COVID-19 pandemic and created the company’s own digital streaming service, helping the festival better connect with audiences in an increasingly digital age. But his tenure was also not without controversy, with Cimolino drawing significant criticism over how the festival has treated Black performers and other racialized artists. 

Moving from acting to directing

In person, Cimolino is direct and deeply analytical. He possesses the uncanny ability to quote lines from Shakespeare’s plays at will, in a way that only a Shakespearean expert could.

Cimolino’s first introduction to the Stratford Festival came as a teenager, when he saw a production of “Love’s Labour’s Lost.” Growing up, he had followed in his sister’s footsteps and enrolled in dance classes, while also performing in plays throughout high school. 

Cimolino, however, wasn’t expected to pursue a life in the theatre. In his youth, he was a champion debater, competing across Canada and the U.S. Both his parents wanted him to become a lawyer. “I could feel this tension growing as I got closer to graduating high school,” he recalled. But instead of law school, Cimolino decided to pursue theatre because it was the arts that left him most fulfilled. 

As an actor in the Stratford ensemble, Cimolino mostly performed in smaller, ensemble roles. His biggest break came in 1992, when he starred as Romeo opposite Megan Follows’ Juliet. But by the mid-90s, Cimolino knew his passion laid more in directing. “Actors like Colm (Feore), Seana (McKenna) or Lucy (Peacock), they live their parts and they’re so focused on it,” he said. “Whereas I didn’t have that obsession, which you need to be a really good actor.” 

Championing the classics and contemporary voices

After moving into directing, Shakespeare became Cimolino’s bread and butter. During his time with the festival, he staged 14 of the Bard’s plays (including two iterations of “The Tempest” and “The Merry Wives of Windsor”). Among the productions he’s most proud of: his dark, brooding take on “Macbeth” in 2016. “I remember one decision that I made, which was probably the most important, was that I started early with the witches,” he shared. “So, before our first reading, we spent a week doing research on black magic, why people want to harness it, what it means to be a witch. It was great because the witches were eerily prepared. And in that production, it was the witch’s world and everyone was kind of visiting it.”

Beyond Shakespeare, Cimolino was also a champion of the Italian playwright Eduardo De Filippo, whom he’s described as the “Italian Chekhov,” embedding dark social commentary behind his rich style of comedy. Cimolino has directed three English-language adaptations of De Filippo’s work and will stage a fourth (“Saturday, Sunday, Monday”) later this summer, which will mark his final production as Stratford artistic director. 

But arguably Cimolino’s greatest impact in the top job was his emphasis on new play development. By the end of this season, he will have programmed 31 new works during his tenure, including acclaimed plays like “Casey and Diana” and “Salesman in China,” both of which went on to have future runs across Canada.

This evolution from a company focused almost exclusively on the classics to one that balances classical works and new play development led to tectonic shifts in the Canadian theatre landscape, transforming Stratford, somewhat improbably, into one of the most important incubators of new work in the country. 

“I wanted to make sure that the contemporary voice was there alongside the voice of the ancients,” Cimolino explained. 

Navigating the COVID-19 shutdown and a racial reckoning 

For the outgoing artistic director, however, there’s also some feeling of regret that comes with reflecting back on his tenure. It’s not hard, for instance, for Cimolino to think of what more could have been accomplished if not for the COVID-19 shutdown, which entirely halted the festival’s in-person programming and disrupted the company’s pipeline of new play development. 

One unproduced play that still lingers with Cimolino is Rosa Laborde’s “Trouble,” a companion piece to Shakespeare’s “Macbeth.” “We did a reading of it and it was fantastic,” he said. “I would’ve produced it in a heartbeat. It was just so good.” 

Another major regret: Cimolino’s handling of Stratford’s racial reckoning in 2020, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement and the murder of George Floyd.

During that season, many company members spoke candidly about the festival’s historical treatment of Black and other racialized artists, with some highlighting constrictive casting practices that at times let directors shoehorn actors into racially stereotypical roles. One of the key frustrations was with the festival’s use of “as cast” contracts, which allowed the company to hire actors before casting them in specific roles. When parts were then assigned, actors often had little say in the process. 

While the racial reckoning in 2020 did lead Stratford and other Canadian companies to move away from those types of contracts in favour of “casting by consent,” which offers actors more agency in the casting process and permits them to turn down roles that conflict with their identity, Cimolino said he regrets not recognizing these issues earlier. “I wish I had supported actors better and earlier. I wish I had understood the challenge that a person who’s new to the company might feel,” he said. “It wasn’t that my heart wasn’t in it. I just wasn’t doing the work.”

Cimolino’s other regrets are acutely specific. “I feel I could have directed Martha better,” he shared. He’s referring to the late Stratford legend Martha Henry in Cimolino’s 2018 production of “The Tempest,” in which she played a gender-bent Prospero, the powerful sorceress who was exiled by her brother and now seeks vengeance. 

During that run, Henry struggled with a particularly challenging and twisty speech in the play’s first act, occasionally forgetting her lines. Cimolino, at the time, didn’t know how to support his star. It was not until he revisited the play earlier this spring, in a production starring Geraint Wyn Davies, when Cimolino realized how he could’ve supported Henry better. “I understand the play better now, and that’s true of a lot of projects,” he said. “But, of course, we can’t go back.” 

Cimolino’s next chapter

In the fall, Cimolino will officially pass the reins to Jonathan Church, the British-Canadian theatremaker known for leading some of the biggest regional houses in the U.K. As for what’s next in his career, the outgoing artistic director said he hopes to get into teaching and freelance directing. “I would love to direct at the festival again,” he said. 

But Cimolino doesn’t see himself stepping into another arts leadership or administrative role. Neither does he want to return to acting. “If I wasn’t all that good then, I can’t imagine how terrible I’d be now,” he said with a dose of self-deprecating humour.  

For now, he’s just relishing his final season with Stratford, and everything that comes with being its artistic director. During his last opening week — an especially busy one with seven shows opening in six days — that means acting almost like a ringmaster in charge of a complex circus, while also running his own act. He’s checking in on all the productions, staying on top of the illnesses going through the company, delivering notes to directors and actors who need an extra boost of support. And he’s taking time, as well, to step back and reflect. “I’m trying to savour things more, even the things that feel annoying right now,” he said, “because I’m probably going to look back and think, ‘Remember when that used to happen?’”