Hayden

Hayden Ibbott is a second-year Game Design Student at Fanshawe College in London, Ontario.  With an established love of gaming, he also has a strong interest in live theatre.  He often writes guest reviews of productions at The Grand Theatre and The Stratford Festival.  You can read his most recent reviews of the Stratford Festival on DownshiftingPRO.com His attention to detail is what makes his reviews authentic and fun.

What’s Great about Stratford Festival’s Little Shop of Horrors

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Audrey II in Little Shop of Horrors at the Stratford Festival 2019

Little Shop of Horrors

Something that occurred to me as I came home after seeing the Stratford Theatre Festival’s production of Little Shop of Horrors is that musicals transcend the qualities of most stage plays. It begs the question: What’s Great about Stratford Festival’s Little Shop of Horrors?

Okay, hear me out.

What's Great about Stratford Festival
Audrey II in the Gift Shop of the Avon Theatre

I like musicals. Musicals are a cool, fun way to tell a story through an unconventional sort of medium. Because of constant singing, there’s an emotional disconnect of sorts. So long as the characters are singing and dancing, you can tell even a grim, morbid tale with glee and joviality.

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To Kill a Mockingbird at Stratford – Outstanding Production

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To Kill a Mockingbird at Stratford @DownshiftingPRO compelling theatre
To Kill a Mockingbird at Stratford - review by Hayden Ibbott

It’s not too late to see To Kill a Mockingbird at Stratford.  Just go!

This year was a slow start for us.  We have left going to Stratford until the end and now, I regret not getting on it sooner.  So far, we have seen The Music Man and To Kill a Mockingbird (one of the best productions I have ever seen at Stratford), and at the end of the month, we will see The Rocky Horror Show.  Our son was lucky enough to catch The Tempest in September.

Chastising myself for missing out on The Tempest and Coriolanus,  I’ve picked up the line-up for the 2019 Stratford Festival season and have started to plan which plays to go to next year.  There are no excuses not to go, Stratford is located a short one-hour drive from both Toronto and London.  If you love live theatre and you love Shakespeare, you can’t go wrong with the Stratford Festival.

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