The Stratford Festival Theatre

A Good Block: The Stratford Festival Theatre

This gallery follows the origins and evolution of the thrust stage from ancient amphitheatres to the Globe theatre of Shakespeare’s day, to the reinvention of the stage at the Stratford Festival in Canada. The thrust stage’s design by Tanya Moiseiwitsch, in which an actor can be seen from all sides, separated the Stratford Festival from other theatres worldwide, not only in terms of how a production was blocked, but also in the conception of how to perform, and how to design costumes, props, and sets. The thrust stage helped to foster a burgeoning Canadian theatre culture through the demands it made on both performers and different elements of design and production staff.