Queen Street south of Ontario Street was part of the land survey by Toronto developers John Arnold and James Lukin in 1853. It was later extended north of Ontario to the river, and then across the river (where it was eventually renamed Guthrie Avenue). Arnold and Lukin brought all their street names from Toronto and this street was named for Queen Street in Toronto. Queen Street in Toronto was named for Queen Victoria in about 1843. By Stanford Dingman
Addendum: The years 1843 to 1853, which spanned the naming of Queen Street in Toronto and Queen Street in Stratford, were one of the busiest and happiest periods in Queen Victoria's life. It included the birth of seven of her nine children and the opening of the Great Exhibition in London in 1851. It attracted six million visitors to marvel at the great Crystal Palace in Hyde Park . Source: Streets of Stratford, 2004
Artist: Rich Thistle
The Stratford Festival Theatre
The Festival Theatre was founded as the Stratford Shakespearean Festival of Canada by Tom Patterson (see Delamere Avenue). He was a Stratford native and journalist who wanted to revitalize his town's economy by creating a theatre festival dedicated to the works of William Shakespeare, in that the town shares the name of Shakespeare's birthplace, Stratford-upon-Avon, England.
Stratford was a railway centre with a major locomotive repair facility, but it was facing a disastrous downturn with the imminent elimination of steam power. Patterson achieved his goal after gaining encouragement from Mayor David Simpson and the local council, and the Stratford Shakespearean Festival became a legal entity on Oct. 31, 1952.
Already established in Canadian theatre, Dora Mavor Moore helped put Patterson in touch with British actor and director Tyrone Guthrie, first with a transatlantic telephone call. Guthrie then made other notable contacts. On July 13, 1953, actor Alec Guinness spoke the first lines of the first play produced by the festival, a production of Richard III: "Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this son of York." Guinness and Irene Worth were in the cast of Stratford's inaugural performance, working for expenses only.
Fundraising to build a permanent theatre was slow, but was helped significantly by donations from Governor General Vincent Massey and the Perth Mutual Insurance Co. Bob Fairfield designed the the new building. (see Fairfield Drive). The new permanent Festival Theatre building was dedicated on June 30, 1957, with seating for more than 2,200 people, no seats more than 65 feet from the stage. The design was deliberately intended to resemble a huge tent.
The Festival Theatre's thrust stage was designed by British designer Tanya Moiseiwitsch to resemble both a classic Greek amphitheatre and Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. It has since become a model for other stages in North America and Great Britain. Source: Wiki
Note: Tom Patterson's book, First Stage, The Making of the Stratford Festival, provides the full history of the founding of the Festival.
The Festival Gardens
There are four distinct sections to the Festival Gardens. The largest is the Arthur Meighen Gardens, created in 1996 as a gift from the family of Canada's ninth prime minister, first elected in 1920. It lines the approach to the front entrance of the theatre. The gardens are a botanist's delight. Mainly perennials, all the plants are clearly labelled with their botanical and common names.
A short way along the building forecourt, past the huge planters, each containing lantanas, there is the Ann Casson rose garden (2). The rose bed is filled with about 40 varieties in a rainbow of colours.
Next, steps away, is the Elizabethan Garden (3). This parterre garden, a style first introduced in France during the life of Shakespeare, is designed with crazy paving, a method that originated in ancient Rome; the sections of parterre are enclosed by neatly trimmed boxwood hedges. At one corner stands a gleaming steel statue of the bard, book in hand. On the fountain at the centre, words from his play "Cymbeline" are inscribed: "These flowers are like the pleasures of the world."
* Click to see slides
Within the symmetrical parterre are four named gardens containing plants familiar in the 16th century. There's the Witch's Garden with plants such as vervain, considered in ancient times to be a herb with great medicinal powers. In the Romantic Garden are flowers used to make garlands, nosegays and posies. These might include clary sage, used for love potions, dreams and divinations. Of course, in the Kitchen Garden are edible plants and herbs. The fourth section (4) is Shakespeare's Garden, where plants are paired with passages mentioned in his works.
Beyond the Elizabethan Garden, in an expanse of lawn, is a Carpet bed, a style that was all the rage in the Victorian era and is still popular in public gardens. A carpet bed is designed using low-growing plants to present a smooth surface patterned as the name suggests. Source: The Record
* Click to see slides
Frank Holte, sculptures
This sculpture of Shakespeare was done by Frank Holte.
Born in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, he served his apprenticeship there at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre Company. He emigrated to Ontario, Canada, in 1970, where he headed the Stratford Shakespeare Festival prop department for 39 seasons. Holte is especially well-known for his work in stainless steel.
A modern medium, stainless steel is much more economical than bronze but is rarely used for representational figure work. Holte’s statue of William Shakespeare in the garden highly unusual and unique.
* Click to see slides
Holte’s other stainless works include a 40-foot phoenix, commissioned by the Royal Ontario Museum, and Spirit, a larger-than-life horse that graces the courtyard of the Stratford General Hospital. More recently, he created the Memorial Tree for the Stratford branch of the Royal Canadian Legion.
Spirit Photo by Fred Gonder
Memorial Tree Photo Fred Gonder
While I was at the Festival gardens I looked at four distinct sections . "beautiful"
Now for a short walk through Queen's Park over to the bridge to nowhere in the Memorial Peace Garden on Richard Monette Way
Skip Manley: the Toscanini of tents
The tent went up on Saturday, June 26, 1953. Opening night was just 17 days away, on July 13, and on that Saturday, practically the whole town turned out to watch. For days in advance, adults and kids dropped by to watch the progress at the site. But on that Saturday, hundreds were there for the actual tent raising. Many locals helped to man the guy ropes. There was a lot of sweat and strain from the crew at the ropes until “the magnificent tent majestically rippled in the breeze."
Skip Manley was the tent-master, recommended by the United States Tent and Awning Co., which made the tent. When the tent arrived from Chicago there was a collective sigh of relief. Festival money had dried up just weeks before, and while Oliver Gaffney (see below) of Stratford continued construction of the building at the Festival site not knowing if he would ever be paid, the Chicago tent company stopped work until the flow of money resumed.
It did flow again, but until it did, everyone was anxious. Actors needed to get on stage. The tradesmen couldn’t work inside until the tent was up. Sound and lighting had to be installed, not to mention seats and washrooms.
Skip Manley was widely described as an original and talented character, a Toscanini of tents, according to Tyrone Guthrie. And that he was. He was in his 40s when he first came to Stratford, by which time he had erected circus-sized tents all over the United States, but nothing quite the size of Stratford’s.
Manley had a ritual. Before he set up any tent, he bought a straw hat and wouldn’t take it off till the tent was brought down at the end of the season. Tom Patterson, the Festival’s founder, said in First Stage: The Making of the Festival that Manley kept “huge needles in the hat, using it as a pin cushion, yanking one needle out whenever he needed to repair the tent.” That hat is now at the Stratford Festival archives.
When a storm had passed, Manley, just a tiny figure clambering about on the enormous sagging tent, could be seen sewing up the slashes that he himself had made to relieve the water build-up. His were neat, tiny surgical-like stitches. He was up on the tent, making repairs, half an hour before the public assembled for the opening night.
The Crew. Stratford-Perth Archive
Skip Manley was not bothered by the enormity of the project. Patterson hailed him as “one of the heroes of the Festival.” He stayed in Stratford the whole summer and solved problems caused by heavy rains and wind and storms that made the ropes creak and strain, and the canvas flap. The tent served the Festival for its first four years. Each year it was taken down, stored and re-raised.
At the end of its life, the tent was put to rest. It was cut into tiny squares and distributed as unique mementoes to Festival patrons. Sources: Barbara Reid, A Star Danced and Tom Patterson, First Stage. Compiled by Gord Conroy
Tent raising Photo Rob Lemon . . . FB
The tent rose 61 feet above the ground and was 150 feet in diameter. Its original cost was $23,000.
Fanfare
If you have been to a Festival performance you have probably heard the fanfare. At every performance there is a fanfare, played by live musicians to inform the audience that the show is about to begin. They play the four times at four theatre locations for each performance. It was always a thrill to hear the brass horns and drum echo throughout the building, announcing that something special was about to happen. The fanfare was composed by Louis Applebaum (below) and has been played more than 100,000 times since the theatre opened in 1953. By Paul Wilker
Louis Applebaum,
The Fanfare announces the play is about to begin. " Click above to hear it ".
From here I went out into the Festival Gardens to see the Toscanini of tents on this same street.
Louis Applebaum, composer
Canada’s most prodigious composer, Louis Applebaum, wrote hundreds of scores for film, theatre, ballet, radio and television. He was also a tireless administrator and champion of the arts. He made significant contributions to developing, nurturing and promoting the arts in Canada.
In addition to composing more than 250 scores for the National Film Board between 1942 and 1960, he served as staff composer for the Stratford Festival – which he helped launch with Tyrone Guthrie – from 1953 to 1960, established the Stratford Music Festival in 1955, and composed incidental music and fanfares for more than 75 Stratford plays.
Composed by Louis Applebaum
He served as music consultant at CBC television from 1960 to 1963, was chairman of the music, opera and ballet advisory committee for the National Arts Centre from 1963 to 1966, and in 1965 chaired a government-commissioned committee whose report led to the formation of the National Arts Centre Orchestra.
In addition to winning a Canadian Film Award in 1968 and a Gemini Award in 1989, he was nominated for an Academy Award in 1946 for The Story of G. I. Joe. He was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1976, a Member in 1989 and a Companion in 1995. He was inducted into the Order of Ontario in 1989, was given a Juno Award for industry achievement in 1995, and received the Arts Toronto Lifetime Achievement Award. He died in 2000 at age 82. Source: Canadian Film Encyclopedia Photo: Wikipedia
He was honoured with a Stratford Bronze Star on July 1, 2006. It is in front of the Avon Theatre.
Harry Showalter, first president of the Festival board
In the spring of 1952, Harrison (Harry) Showalter became the head of the steering committee for the Stratford Shakespearean Festival that worked with Tom Patterson (see Delamere Avenue), Tyrone Guthrie (see Guthrie Street), and business and civic leaders to overcome obstacle after obstacle to create the Festival that opened just a year later, in July 1953. It was nothing short of a miracle.
Tom Patterson called him “brilliant, bubbling with enthusiasm, and a bulldog.” Tyrone Guthrie thought him nothing short of “remarkable.”
A chemist by trade, Showalter was stubborn, committed, practical, a man of faith and a gifted orator “ready to give a speech at the drop of a hat.” When the steering committee met Guthrie, Showalter spoke for the whole committee when he said, "We want to do something remarkable. And they did."
The committee knew nothing about theatre. But Guthrie did. So they listened and acted. Showalter gave a deeply moving speech at the sod-turning in April 1953. He spoke of overcoming the hardships below to see the beauties above, and grasping the torch of leadership in the cultural world. Showalter recruited Alf Bell to be vice-chair of the committee; it was a brilliant move. Bell remained involved with the Festival until his death in 1988, at age 78. His wife Dama was equally committed. In addition to all their organizational work for the Festival, they generously hosted Festival people and events. (see James Street).
In later years, Showalter spoke for all who were involved with turning that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity from dream to reality: “It was an intoxicating idea.” Source: Barbara Reid and Thelma Morrison, A Star Danced. Compiled by Gord Conroy.
Harry Showalter, Stratford-Perth Archives
OLiver Gaffney, Stratford-Perth Archives
Oliver Gaffney, builder
In 1953, Oliver Gaffney, a Stratford construction company owner and builder (see Downie Street), made it possible for the Stratford Shakespearean Festival to open on time. In fact, ihe Festival may not have opened at all, if it had not been for Oliver Gaffney.
Here’s what the Festival itself says on its website. Timeline | Stratford Festival Official Website | Stratford Festival: "A concrete amphitheatre was built to hold a revolutionary thrust stage conceived by Guthrie and designer Tanya Moiseiwitsch – the same stage that is the heart of the Festival Theatre today. For the inaugural season, though, and the three that followed it, the stage and auditorium were housed under a giant canvas tent. The road to completion was fraught with difficulty. In May 1953, it seemed as if the entire daring venture would founder for lack of funds. But (Stratford) building contractor Oliver Gaffney kept his men working regardless, until last-minute donations by Governor General Vincent Massey and the Perth Mutual Insurance Company saved the day.
Gaffney’s decision to keep building was a magnificent one. In A Star Danced, Barbara Reid said, “No one ever said a negative word about Oliver Gaffney. He was described as 'marvelous,' a 'saviour,' and a 'rock' by Stratford residents.
When rehearsals began at the Stratford fairgrounds (24 Glastonbury Drive), Gaffney built a mock-up stage, just like the Tanya thrust stage. When rehearsals shifted to the tent, he and his men worked at night so rehearsals could proceed during the day. When terrible acoustics of the concrete bowl proved a near insurmountable obstacle, Gaffney called in huge tarpaulins from projects across the country to drape the concrete until coco-matting could be laid to absorb the sound.
One man summed up Oliver Gaffney’s contribution this way. “He came to our rescue, calmly and without a hint of excitement or doubt, over and over again.”
Gaffney was involved with the Rotary Club of Stratford, the Children’s Aid Society and Stratford General Hospital. He was awarded a bicentennial medal in 1984, and was president of the Stratford Festival's board of governors. He received Stratford’s Bronze Star Award for his contributions to the Festival, and it was located near the Royal Bank. Source: Barbara Reid and Thelma Morrison, A Star Danced. Compiled by Gord Conroy.
Anita Gaffney, Stratford-Perth Archives
Anita Gaffney, executive director
Executive director Anita Gaffney was named one of Canada's most powerful women and was honoured at the Women's Executive Network (WXN) awards ceremony in Toronto, where she received the Top 100 Award in the BMO Arts, Sports and Entertainment category.
She was born and raised in Stratford. Her father was Oliver Gaffney (see above), so her interest in service and commitment to others began early.
She joined the Festival in 1991 as a publicity assistant, and through the next three decade held a variety of positions, including director of marketing during the theatre's years of peak attendance. She designed the Festival's customer relationship marketing system, which remains in use today and has been emulated by arts organizations around the world.
An active member of the Stratford community, Gaffney is a past chair of Stratford's economic development agency, (InvestStratford) and the Stratford Public Library. In 2011 was campaign chair of the United Way Perth-Huron and helped raise $1.2 million. Within the broader arts community, she has volunteered with the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres, and provided marketing and administrative support to Culture Days Ontario. She currently serves on the board of Destination Ontario.
In 2008, she was selected to participate in the Governor General's Leadership Conference, and in 2006 she received a business excellence award for personal achievement from the Stratford and District Chamber of Commerce. In 2010 she was named Woman of the Year in the Arts by Optimism Place Stratford. Source: Broadway World
Anita Gaffney has been executive director of the Stratford Festival since 2013. She leads all administrative and operational business activities and, with the artistic director, sets the strategic direction for the organization. Since that appointment, she has guided the Festival towards financial stability by posting an operating surplus in each year of her tenure. She has also supported a number of new initiatives including the Stratford Festival Forum, the Laboratory, the HD film series and the Stratford Direct bus service. Her leadership has also led to the launch of a $100-million campaign to support the construction of the Tom Patterson Theatre Centre Sourced by Gord Conroy
The 1959 Royal tour (As You Like It)
In 1959, Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, did a 45-day tour of Canada, stopping in every province and territory. On July 2 that year, they attended a special performance of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, with Irene Worth as Rosalind in the Festival Theatre.
At the train station, the Queen, radiant in full regalia with tiara, jewels, evening gown and stole, descended with Prince Phillip from the Royal Train and was greeted by cheering crowds.
From there, the Royals rode in a motorcade to the Festival Theatre where they were met by Tom Patterson. After the play, the Queen and the Duke went backstage to meet the actors. Among them was Irene Worth, a British actor who starred with Alec Guinness in the first year of the Festival (1953) in the original tent-theatre.
From backstage, the Queen once again crossed the Festival stage, mounted the theatre steps to the foyer. She escorted outside by theatre manager Vic Polley, (see Polley Place) to a crowd waiting to gave the Royal visitors a thunderous ovation. Overhead, fireworks flashed in a colourful display.
Royal Couple at Train Station, Stratford-Perth Archives
On June 29, 1998, Queen Elizabeth, on her wedding anniversary, visited Stratford once again, arriving by a helicopter which landed on the baseball diamond behind the Festival Theatre in Lower Queens Park . She met with Tom Patterson for a few minutes and then christened new construction on the theatre. She stayed only briefly, but was able to see a 10-minute excerpt performed for her from The Taming of the Shrew. Sourced by Gord Conroy from Tom Patterson, First Stage: The Making of the Stratford Festival.
* Watch YouTube video of the visit below:
Robertson Davies and a Stratford trilogy
Robertson Davies, (1913-1995), with Dora Mavor Moore, helped Tom Patterson persuade Tyrone Guthrie (see Guthrie Avenue) to come to Stratford to head up the new Shakespeare festival in 1953. Davies, in this and other ways, played a major role in the founding of the Stratford Festival, serving on its board of governors, and collaborating on three books about the founding of the Festival in its first three years.
As a friend of Guthrie, whom he had known from their days together at the Old Vic Theatre before the Second World War, Davies often attended Stratford rehearsals, saw all the plays several times, and handled his writing of the plays and the Stratford experience in the books about the Festival with his usual wit and scholarship. Later on, he wrote Thirty Years at Stratford, based on his lectures.
The three books, Renown at Stratford, Twice Have the Trumpets Sounded and Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew’d (1953-1955) were co-authored with Guthrie. Grant Macdonald provided a pictorial record for the first two years; Tanya Moiseiwitsch did likewise for the third year. The trilogy is a precious reminiscence of the beginning of the Festival and its first years. Sourced: by Gord Conroy The Canadian Encyclopedia
Footnote: Judith Skelton Grant of Stratford, a Canadian editor, writer and biographer, has written several books about Robertson Davies, his life and works. Source: Judith Skelton Grant - Wikipedia
Jumping over the Alps
Donald McPherson, world champion figure skater
Donald McPherson lived with his parents first on Ontario Street, then Cobourg Street and finally at 112 Queen St. He attended Falstaff Public School, sang in Gordon Scott's Junior Choir (see Waterloo Street), and learned to skate and honed his skills with the Stratford Skating Club. Donald McPherson was an exceptional athlete who claimed a number of firsts in the history of figure skating. In 1963, he became the first man to claim the Canadian, North American and world senior men's championships in the same year, without having won any of those titles previously. He was the first male in world championships to jump from fourth to first place and, having just turned 18, the youngest man ever to win the world title.
He retired from amateur competition in 1963. After overcoming physical hardships, he returned to skating and starred with "Holiday on Ice" in Europe for 10 years. In 1965, he won the men's world professional championships. He remains the youngest world champion in men's singles. On Nov. 24, 2001, as a result of diabetes, he died at his home in Munich, Germany, at age 56. Source: Skate Canada
* In 2011, he was inducted into the Stratford Sports Wall of Fame. See YouTube Wall of Fame. He was also honoured with a Stratford Bronze Star in 2005. It is located near the entrance to the William Allman Memorial Arena.
Personal note: Don played a choirboy in the Festival's Merry Wives of Windsor, 1956 (see Falstaff Street).
See vidoe below.
John Whyte Sr., Whyte Packing Co.
The founder of the Whyte Packing Co., John Whyte Sr. (see Whyte Avenue) was born in about 1822 in Ardlui, tiny hamlet at the north end of Scotland’s famous Loch Lomond.
He grew to be a strapping big fellow of six foot five. Family lore has it that in his late teens he left Ardlui and walked to Glasgow, where he apprenticed to become a stone cutter and mason. It was in Glasgow that he married Margaret Cooke Miller on Feb. 19, 1843.
He immigrated to Canada in 1849. Census data suggests that he came first and that Margaret followed with their two children and her mother in 1850. They settled on a farm in Hibbert Township, Perth County, where they lived in a single-storey log house. In the next 14 years, the family grew by six more children.
Farming was difficult in those years, but John was able to supplement the family’s income by taking commissions for stone cutting and masonry work. He was particularly in demand for stonework on bridges throughout the county and beyond.
On one commission, he worked in Stratford on the stone Huron Street bridge, which crosses the Avon River. As a result of the Crimean War (1854-1856), prices for agricultural products substantially increased. But White prospered and with his new found capital and expanded his land holdings.
In 1859, he diversified his business to include pork barreling, which was the genesis of the Whyte Packing Co. Within a few years he built a small processing plant in the village of Cromarty (Hibbert Township), but by 1870 had built a larger operation in Mitchell, where there were rail connections and easier access to growing markets.
174 Queen St.
John Jr. managed the business while his father travelled by train and boat to logging camps and sawmills in the Gravenhurst-Muskoka area, which he supplied with his pork products. He also regularly went to the Red River Colony, which required trains from Stratford to Sarnia, Chicago and St. Paul, Minn. From there he went by boat up the Red River to what is now Winnipeg to sell his products.
In the late 1890s, the Whyte Packing Co. was one of the largest such companies in Canada. After John Jr. went to England and established a network for their products there, he convinced his father to move their operations to Stratford, which had better and more diversified rail links. In Stratford, they hired some of the best architects and engineers from Chicago, the hog processing capital of the United States, to design and build the largest and most modern processing plant in Canada.
The plant, which opened on July 1, 1900, was on a 6.5-acre site ust off Erie Street, at 78 Linton Ave., where the city now has a bus garage. The Whytes also built a plant in Brockville and established retail stores in Toronto, Montreal, Mitchell, St. Marys and two in Stratford – one at 42 Downie St., the other at 174 Queen St. to serve the expanding east end of the city.
John Whyte Sr. died on Oct. 13, 1907, and his wife Margaret in 1911. They are buried in the Presbyterian Cemetery in Cromarty, Hibbert Township.
In 1966, facing bankruptcy, the firm was sold and in the 1970s, the city bought the site and demolished plant. The last vestige of the Whyte Packing Co. in Stratford is the building that once housed its butcher shop, at 174 Queen St. Source: Historic Plaque Properties
Ken Kalmusky, musician
Ken Kalmusky (1945-2005) grew up at 127 Queen St. in Stratford, near Queens Park. His father was a saxophonist, and the house basement was often alive with music, much of it made by Ken and his friends, among them Richard Manuel. He and Ken became members of the Revols (see Richard Monette Way). Ken also worked with the likes of Ronnie Hawkins, Ian and Sylvia, Jerry Reed, Amos Garrett, and Todd Rundgren. Ken Kalmusky toured the world as a musician and played on stages from Massey Hall in Toronto to the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tenn.
He grew up beside the Grattons who lived in the former Pequegnat house at 289 Cobourg St. (see Cobourg Street). As kids, Vince Gratton and Ken Kalmusky were good friends, whose adventure land was Queens Park.
About when he turned 16, Ken dropped out of school and began touring with Hawkins, leaving The Revols behind. After a decade, he joined Ian and Sylvia and helped form their band, Great Speckled Bird.
By 1970, Kalmusky was back in Stratford, where his children were born, and started the Stratford-based band Plum Loco with a former bandmate from the Revols, John Till. He also continued to tour, record and play. In 2020, Kalmusky and Till were honoured with Bronze Stars by the City of Stratford.
* Read further career details in the article with pictures here: Ken Kalmusky-Wikipedia
Ken Kalmusky, bass player with the Revols.
Bronze Stars 2020.
Stars for Ken Kalmusky and John Till
The City of Stratford awarded 2020 Bronze Stars to Stratford-born musicians John Till and Ken Kalmusky, both of whom had stellar careers in the music industry.
In the late 50s, Ken Kalmusky was a bass player with the Revols, a Stratford band that included Till on guitar, Richard Manuel on piano and lead vocals, Doug Rhodes on vocals and Jim Winkler on drums. Kalmusky later joined Ronnie Hawkins’ band, The Hawks, and Ian and Sylvia's Great Speckled Bird.
John Till also started with the Revols in Stratford before joining Ronnie Hawkins’ band. He later became a member of Janis Joplin’s Full Tilt Boogie Band.
The musical legacy of Till and Kalmusky is recognized in other places in Stratford. In Allen’s Alley (see Wellington Street) there is a mural featuring the Revols, and on the Kiwanis bandshell at Upper Queens Park there is a plaque honouring the band. Source: City of Stratford - The Municipality - Posts | Facebook