Stratford Festival and actors ‘resilient’ after opening night bomb threat
A cast member at the Stratford Festival says the company and actors remain resilient after Monday night’s bomb threat that cancelled the official opening night of the 2018 season.
Lucy Peacock, who plays the goddess Juno in “The Tempest,” says they’re still in shock and feeling some anger over what happened. But she also points to the “old cliche” that “the show must go on,” and says she thinks the rest of the performances there this week will be “extraordinary.”
Police in Stratford, Ont., say they received a call yesterday evening before the opening of “The Tempest” that explosives had been placed at the festival.
Festival officials were alerted and both the Avon and Festival theatres were evacuated as a precaution.
Police officers swept the scene for suspicious items or packages and announced early this morning that areas around the theatres “have been opened up and police are clear from the area.”
Police added on Twitter that all buildings at the festival have been turned back over to staff.
The police tweet did not indicate if anything suspicious had been found during the search.
However, Peacock says staff received a notice from the festival this morning “saying that there was no bomb and everything is all clear and everyone should show up.”
Ann Swerdfager, the publicity director at Stratford Festival, said in a statement Monday night that all ticket purchases would be honoured and ticket holders for Monday’s performance will be contacted by festival staff.
She said Tuesday’s performances, including the opening of “The Music Man,” would proceed as scheduled with increased security.
“The energy and the commitment and the support will be uncontainable in that room tonight at the Festival Theatre,” Peacock said Tuesday morning in a phone interview.
“Actors are resilient, theatres are resilient, the art will happen, the words will be spoken, the songs will be sung – and something extraordinary will bizarrely come out of this, even if it’s simply the galvanizing of a large number of people for the rest of the season.”