The Stratford Festival has found its next Othello within the ranks of its ensemble: Michael Blake.
Blake will star in director Nigel Shawn Williams’ upcoming production of the tragedy at the Festival Theatre in 2019, the Ontario theatre company announced on Tuesday.
It’s a well-earned title role for Blake – currently in his seventh season, playing Caliban in The Tempest and Cominius in Coriolanus. The actor, who will be only the third black Canadian to play the Moor of Venice at Stratford, has been a standout in supporting parts in recent seasons, singled out as a “powerful young actor” by The New York Times for his performances in All My Sons and Macbeth.
Opposite Blake’s Othello will be a number of the company’s emerging stars. Desdemona will be played by Amelia Sargisson, who continues to shine in her Stratford debut as Eve in the held-over new play Paradise Lost, while Iago will be played by Gordon S. Miller, who most recently won over critics as James Tyrone Jr. in Long Day’s Journey Into Night.
Jonathan Sousa, who brought an electric Hotspur to the stage in 2016, has been cast as Cassio.
After a year where gender-bent casting was the rule rather than exception in its Shakespeare productions, Stratford’s artistic director Antoni Cimolino has unveiled casting for its upcoming season that will be more familiar to long-time audiences.
In one case, the casting will be extremely familiar. Geraint Wyn Davies is set to play Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor under the direction of Cimolino. The festival favourite played the same part in Stratford’s 2011 production of the play, as well as in 2016’s Breath of Kings, a concatenation of four history plays that included both parts of Henry IV.
The merry wives referred to in the title, Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Page, will be played by Sophia Walker and Brigit Wilson respectively, while Graham Abbey and Blake will play their less-merry husbands, Mr. Ford and Mr. Page.
Over at the Studio Theatre, Jonathan Goad – Stratford’s most recent Hamlet - will play the title role of Henry VIII in a production directed by Martha Henry. Cardinal Wolsey will be played by Rod Beattie and Katherine of Aragon by Irene Poole.
Rounding out the dramatic fare in the Festival Theatre, The Front Page, the classic 1928 U.S. newspaper comedy appearing at the Festival Theatre in a new adaptation by Michael Healey, will star Ben Carlson as reporter Hildy Johnson and Maev Beaty as his editor, Penelope Burns.
And Nolen Dubuc, a young performer from British Columbia, will star as 11-year-old Billy Elliott in director Donna Feore’s new production of the musical about a young dancer in a mining town. Dan Chameroy will play the boy’s father, while Blythe Wilson will play his dance teacher, Mrs. Wilkinson.
Little Shop of Horrors, the other musical in the season (also directed by Feore), will star Gabi Epstein in her Stratford debut as Audrey and André Morin as Seymour. Chameroy will play a sadomasochistic dentist in this campy sci-fi spoof musical - following his much-talked-about turn this season as Frank N Furter in The Rocky Horror Show, another campy sci-fi spoof musical and a hit held over well into November.
For the casting of the whole season, visit stratfordfestival.ca
J. Kelly Nestruck