“You want to choose things that feel important to the moment,” he says about building a Stratford Festival season. “If you choose plays and they don’t resonate, it’s very hurtful. You believe in them and the power of them.”
"We do something formative at some point in the arts, and then we just continue doing that in different fonts until we’re no longer on this earth," says Reis. "The important thing is to know what that is, because you don’t want to be controlled by it. You want to be in control."
By Nathaniel Hanula-James /Jan 9, 2026
iPhoto caption: L to R, top to bottom: 'The 39 Steps' (photo by Raph Nogal), 'Benevolence' (photo by Jae Yang), 'The Born-Again Crow' (photo by Jeremy Mimnagh), 'Dimanche' (photo by Thomas Müller), 'Last Landscape' (photo by Fran Chudnoff), 'The Merchant of Venice' (photo by Kyle Purcell), 'Slave Play' (photo by Dahlia Katz), 'Waiting for Godot' (photo by Elana Emer), 'The Welkin' (photo by Dahlia Katz).
With the lights fading on another year of fleeting thrills in dark rooms, we asked 12 Ontario performing arts writers to reflect on a moment that stayed with them. The results mainly stem from Toronto theatre productions, but there are a few surprises weaved in.