New Tom Patterson Theatre at Stratford Festival likely to win applause from audiences

The theatre is planning a season of live plays and cabarets under two outdoor canopies this summer, the timing of which is still coming into focus along with the province’s reopening plans. As part of the season, Stratford intends to hold some limited-capacity events inside the Patterson complex.

On Thursday, June 10, as part of its weekly online watch party, the theatre will screen four videos which take viewers inside the Patterson. In anticipation of this, the Star was treated to a safe and physically distanced sneak peek tour led by artistic director Antoni Cimolino, executive director Anita Gaffney, and technical director Greg Dougherty.

The theatre, designed by Siamak Hariri, of Toronto-based Hariri Pontarini Architects, is an elegant glass structure with curved walls echoing the movement of the adjacent Avon River. Tall panes of glass are intercut with thin columns of brass that appear to grow wider as your angle of view changes.

Its physical beauty is a far cry from the rough-and-ready look of the previous Tom Patterson Theatre: a converted curling rink.

As you walk through the main doors, the building’s centrepiece presents itself: a drum-shaped structure encased in blond brick, inside which sits the 600-seat theatre. The spacious lobby beneath a high ceiling includes the BMO Box Office, two bars and dining areas, and the Spriet Members Lounge.

Having expansive public gathering areas was central to the festival’s conception of the building, said Cimolino. “Audiences want to interact with arts and artists in a different way. No longer is it that, you know, ‘I rush in, and I see the play, and go away.’ Audiences want to be here. They want to have drinks afterwards, they want to immerse themselves in how the production was made, and hear interesting discussions or concerts that are related to it. We needed a building that enabled them to do that,” he said.

Unlike the 1,800-seat Festival and 1,100-seat Avon Theatres, where the festival stages musicals and familiar Shakespeare titles, the Patterson will continue to be the home for theatre “aficionados,” as Cimolino calls them — audience members who come from afar to see less-often-produced classics such as Middleton and Rowley’s “The Changeling,” or Lope de Vega’s “Fuenteovejuna.” Spaces such as the members lounge are a means of cultivating and rewarding those loyal spectators, said Cimolino. “Our audience meeting each other, making friends here, coming back year after year is about the long-term survival of this institution.”

Other gathering places in the complex include Lazaridis Hall, which will house talks, panels, workshops, and performances in the Meighen Forum series; a flexible lab space called the Dinner Rooney Workshop; and the outdoor Alonzo Terrace.

To what will surely be the rejoicing of many, I can reveal that there are extensive washroom facilities, including gender-neutral washrooms.

Behind the theatre is the soundproofed Gorlin Rehearsal Hall, where one show can rehearse even while another is underway; a full catering kitchen; extensive backstage space; and, one floor down, dressing rooms and work areas and offices for artisans and technicians.

What made entering it a powerful experience for me, even beyond the fact of setting foot in a theatre for the first time in 14 months, is how strongly it structurally echoes the old Tom Patterson space: a thrust stage surrounded on three sides by angled banks of seating, creating an environment in which, as Cimolino noted, the audience and performers share the same space rather than being divided by a proscenium arch or tiers of seating.

This intimacy created an imperative for the technical team, said Dougherty: to choose state-of-the-art systems and equipment that would blend into the environment. Numerous small speakers are tucked away in darkness just under the stage floor. Much thought and expertise went into creating an acoustic in which an actor to whisper onstage and be heard in the back row. This included acquiring liquid-cooled lighting fixtures that function soundlessly. In the place of traditional follow spotlights, which are big, hot, and noisy, Stratford has acquired a new technology called RoboSpot: small lights controlled remotely from a separate room with the technician using a console like a video game controller.

Delivering a project of this scale and budget, said Doughtery, is “a once-in-a-career goal ... like hitting the lottery. For the production department to be able to have such input, and to be able to help design the building from the ground up ... it pays off in dividends in the end, when we’re doing shows.”

Among longer-term plans under discussion is extending Festival programming beyond the current May-November schedule into all four seasons.

Nearly complete, save for the installation of artwork and other design features, Gaffney said the Patterson won’t really be finished until there are performers on its stages, artisans and technicians working behind the scenes, and audiences coming through its doors.

“We used to walk around the river and talk about the old Tom Patterson,” said Gaffney, adding the local community also had its own concerns about the use of the former building and grounds. “Should we just renovate it? Should we just fix it? But then we decided: let’s do something really important.”

The long-term vision, said Cimolino, is that the Tom Patterson Theatre will become “a resource, not just for the festival, but eventually for artists from across Canada. It’s part of the infrastructure that we need in this country. The arts deserve to get nice things.”