Event Details

In the spirit of Bernard Shaw, the Shaw Festival provokes the mind and stirs the soul through a theatre experience so compelling that, year after year, ever broadening groups of artists, audiences and supporters are drawn to our work in Niagara-on-the-Lake and beyond.

In 1962, Brian Doherty of Niagara-on-the-Lake and Calvin G Rand of Buffalo created a summer festival dedicated to the work of playwright Bernard Shaw. That first season saw four performances each of Don Juan in Hell and Candida staged in the Assembly Room of Niagara-on-the-Lake’s historic Court House. In this singular act of passion for theatre, the Shaw Festival was born.

The following year, the Shaw Festival Theatre Foundation was established as a non-profit organization, with an elected volunteer Board of Governors, and the company’s mandate was to produce the dramatic works of Bernard Shaw and his contemporaries.

This application is for “Triple Threat on Shaw’s Festival Stage”, taking place May 4 to December 22, 2024, in Niagara-on- the-Lake. The 2024 Festival Theatre season will feature three main productions:

(1) “My Fair Lady” (151 performances from May 4 to December 22): Co-directed by Kimberley Rampersad and Tim Carroll;

(2) “Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of the Human Heart” (50 performances from July 24 to October 13): a world premiere, adapted by Damien Atkins who plays Sherlock Holmes (under the name Reginald Candy); and

(3) “One Man, Two Guvnors” (64 performances from June 6 to October 13), a Canadian premiere of the international hit comedy based on The Servant of Two Masters.

Additional programming will include: (i) Five Spiegeltent productions (up from two in 2023) including all-new musical cabarets: “Cotton Club”, “Kabarett”, “Footlights”, “The Shaw Variety Show”, and “The Roll of Shaw”; (ii) Two productions based on Chinese literature , “The Orphan of Chao” and “Snow in Midsummer”; (iii) “The House That Will Not Stand”; (iv) Agatha Christie’s “Witness for the Prosecution”; and (v) “The Secret Garden”.