Frontmezzjunkies reports: The beloved creators of “Slings & Arrows” bring a one-night-only reading that explores the chaotic origins of a Shakespeare festival
By Ross
For many, many years now, “Slings & Arrows” remains at the top. It is one of the sharpest, funniest, and most emotionally truthful depictions of artistic passion I have ever encountered, capturing the chaos, heartbreak, ego, madness, and strange magic that seem to exist inside every rehearsal hall and backstage corridor. In a strange twist of theatrical fate, while writing about Stratford Festival’s opening production of The Tempest, I found myself quoting the series almost instinctively. I was trying to describe the overwhelming theatrical electricity of Antoni Cimolino’s storm-filled production, and I couldn’t help but be drawn back to that series and its opening scene (“Slings & Arrows” – s01e01 – Oliver’s Dream). Now, somehow, that beloved world is finally finding its way back to Stratford itself, and gifting us all most surprisingly.
The Stratford Festival has announced that on July 26, it will present the first-ever public reading of “The Amateurs“, a brand-new “Slings & Arrows” prequel written by the series’ celebrated creators, Susan Coyne, Bob Martin, and Mark McKinney. Directed by Chris Abraham (StratFest’s Much Ado About Nothing) and presented in collaboration with Crow’s Theatre, the one-night-only reading will feature members of the Stratford Festival company and explore the chaotic origins of a small Shakespeare festival struggling to survive in rural Ontario. And I knew I just had to be there for it.
For longtime fans of “Slings & Arrows“, the premise already sounds wonderfully familiar. According to the Festival, “The Amateurs” follows “a small-town journalist with big dreams” who gathers a determined group of locals together in an effort to rescue their struggling community through art, eventually igniting the beginnings of the fictional New Burbage Festival, a small theatre venture that could one day attract international attention, and thus save their town from ruin. That combination of impossible ambition, civic anxiety, artistic obsession, and theatrical hope feels perfectly aligned with the spirit that made “Slings & Arrows” such a beloved series in the first place.
Artistic Director Designate Jonathan Church described the event as “a delight,” welcoming the creative team to Stratford to celebrate “the founding of our Festival” in their own “unique and witty way.” Meanwhile, director Chris Abraham called the project “a classic-in-the-making,” praising Coyne, Martin, and McKinney for applying their “full-hearted comic genius” to the often absurd reality of building a theatre festival from scratch.
For audiences who love the Stratford Festival as much as I do, this reading carries an especially exciting layer of resonance. “Slings & Arrows” always felt deeply inspired by the emotional realities surrounding large-scale classical theatre, particularly the strange collision between artistic idealism and institutional survival. The series understood that theatre can feel both gloriously ridiculous and spiritually essential at the exact same time. It could satirize inflated artistic egos while still believing wholeheartedly in the transformative power of Shakespeare and live performances.
I still vividly remember visiting the set of “Slings & Arrows“ years ago in Toronto, while the series was being filmed, standing quietly at the edge of a scene that was focused on a chaotic rehearsal for the New Burbage Festival’s Hamlet, which featured the incomparable Paul Gross, Stephen Ouimette, and Martha Burns. Even then, before fully understanding what the show would become, I could feel the electricity humming through the room. That passion for Shakespeare, for performance, and for the impossible struggle between art and commerce became the beating heart of the series itself. Few works have captured the emotional reality of making theatre with such wit, intelligence, heartbreak, and love. I still return to the show whenever I need to believe in the creative process again, especially its beautiful exploration of art, ambition, failure, and the three stages of man.
That emotional contradiction has always been part of Stratford’s own mythology, too. Beneath the glamour of opening nights and celebrated productions sits the constant labour of artists, dreamers, administrators, performers, technicians, and audiences, all choosing, year after year, to believe that theatre matters enough to build entire communities around it.
“The Amateurs” will be presented on Sunday, July 26, at 7:30 p.m. at the Festival Theatre’s Meighen Forum. Tickets range from $29 to $59 and are available now through the Stratford Festival box office and official website.
For any souls out there who fell in love with “Slings & Arrows,” this reading already feels like something far more meaningful than a nostalgic reunion. It feels like a chance to step back once more into a world that understood theatre as an act of collective faith held together by ambition, panic, artistry, delusion, heartbreak, love, and hope. For a series that spent years capturing the beautiful chaos of artists trying to create something meaningful against impossible odds, there is something wonderfully fitting about their story now circling back to the very town that inspired so much of its spirit in the first place.
