Toronto Star, November 05, 2003
Few surprises in Stratford's 2004 casting
By: Robert Crew
The familiar faces of Graham Abbey and Cynthia Dale will take centre stage at the Stratford Festival in 2004.
The Abbey road next summer includes two meaty title roles -- in Shakespeare's MacBeth, with Lucy Peacock as Lady M, and in the Bard's Henry VIII.
And, as previously revealed in the Star, Dale will lead the cast of the two big musicals -- as the Salvation Army's Sarah Brown in Guys And Dolls and nightclub singer Reno Sweeney in Cole Porter's Anything Goes.
They are part of the few-surprises casting unveiled yesterday by the festival.
Guys And Dolls also stars Sheila McCarthy as Miss Adelaide and Scott Wentworth as gambler Sky Masterson, a role he played at Stratford 14 years ago. Patricia Collins plays General Mathilda B. Cartwright and is also Evangeline Harcourt in Anything Goes.
The starriest cast of all has been assembled for Shakespeare's King John.
It includes Stephen Ouimette in the title role, Jonathan Goad who has the longest part in the play as Philip the Bastard, Diane D'Aquila as Constance, Martha Henry (in her first stage appearance at Stratford since 2001) as Queen Eleanor and Tom McCamus (back after an absence of two years) as Hubert.
Goad also plays Theseus/Oberon in A Midsummer's Night Dream.
Sarah Topham is beginning to get ahead at the festival although she will lose it as Anne Bullen in Henry VIII. Topham also plays Brooke Ashton in the Michael Frayn comedy Noises Off.
Peter Donaldson is cast as the outcast Timon in Timon Of Athens with McCamus as the professional cynic Apemantus.
James Blendick plays the title role in Cymbeline, with Henry as the Queen and Claire Jullien as Imogen.
Blendick and Jullien join Peacock and David Snelgrove in Marivaux's The Triumph of Love. Snelgrove also plays Edmond Dantes in The Count of Monte Cristo.
The festival's 52nd season previews from April 20, opens June 1 and runs until Nov. 7.