Free talks and workshops related to the 2025 season will be hosted by the Toronto, London, Hamilton and Stratford Public Libraries and Friends of the McGill Library on various dates in 2025.
Lectures are non-ticketed events. Some workshops require pre-registration through the host library. See below for more information.
Moot Court, Chancellor Day Hall
Enter via Nahum Gelber Law Library, 3660 Peel Street, Montreal, Quebec H3A 1W9 or Online
Tuesday, January 21 from
The Stratford
Festival and
Friends of the McGill Libraries are delighted to partner once again to present the
2025 annual Shakespeare Lecture.
This vital exchange among Antoni Cimolino, Artistic Director of the Stratford Festival, Laurette Dubé, Scientific Director of the McGill Centre for the Convergence of Health and Economics, and Paul Yachnin, Tomlinson Professor of Shakespeare Studies at McGill, will bring forward the example of
Shakespeare’s—and Antoni Cimolino’s—success and will consider what we can learn from how money and meaning clash and converge in plays such as The Merchant
of Venice and King Lear.
Learn more and register for this hybrid
event
First-Floor Auditorium, 789 Yonge Street, Toronto, ON
All lectures begin at 7 p.m.
- Tuesday, March 4: As You Like It with Misha Teramura, Assistant Professor, English, University of Toronto
"All the world's a stage…" Join Prof. Misha
Teramura for an introduction to one of Shakespeare's most popular, most
musical, and most experimental comedies. Bursting with songs and culminating in
four weddings, As You Like It's story of romance and family conflict features
the largest female role in all of Shakespeare along with some of his most
innovative explorations of gender, politics, the natural world, and the nature
of love. Come find out why As You Like It
is not only Shakespeare's most playful play but perhaps also his most radical.
- Tuesday, March 11: Sense and Sensibility with Philippa Sheppard, Lecturer, English, University of Toronto
Jane Austen’s novel, Sense and Sensibility, of two sisters, one sensible (Elinor) and
one emotional (Marianne), who grapple with financial and romantic adversity,
has captivated readers for over two hundred years. Kate Hamill adapts this
story for the stage with utter fidelity to Austen’s sparkling dialogue. Hamill
adds a comic chorus of Gossips, representing the rigid, watchful early 19th
century British society which Elinor and Marianne navigate, relying only on
each other.
- Tuesday, March 18: Macbeth with Jane Freeman, Director, Graduate Centre for Academic Communication, University of Toronto
Think you know Macbeth?
Think again. This summer’s production, directed by Robert Lepage—Canada’s
best-known director internationally—will set the action of the play in the
biker wars of the 1990s. This unusual context provides an opportunity to
explore afresh the play’s potent combination of ambition and broken
allegiances, human and supernatural forms of power, and fate and free will.
- Tuesday, March 25: The Winter’s Tale with Deanne Williams, Professor, English, York University
A jealous tyrant. A pregnant queen. A lost daughter.
And a bear. From a palace in Sicily to the coast of Bohemia, The Winter’s Tale takes you on a
miraculous journey that affirms the power of love, self-knowledge, and the
creative imagination.
19 St. Andrew Street, Stratford, ON
The Stratford Public Library will be offering a range of programming, starting with a sneak peek behind the curtains of the 2025 season. To learn more, please visit
their website.
- Tuesday, March 25 at 6:30 p.m.: Stratford Festival 2025 Sneak Peek - Apollo, Venus & Mars: Reflections on Harmony, Love and War