Huron-Perth Boomers Summer 2024
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
y Elizabeth Bundy-Cooper<br />
SPOTLIGHT<br />
and help the ailing economy. Laura said many<br />
people dismissed it despite the CNR railroad repair<br />
shops recently announcing it was shutting down. In<br />
January 1952, while writing for Maclean’s, Patterson<br />
received a small loan from city council – $125 – to<br />
go to New York City to talk to Sir Lawrence Olivier<br />
to help bring his idea of a Shakespearean theatre<br />
to fruition. Unfortunately, he failed to connect with<br />
Olivier. Canadian theatre pioneer Dora Mavor<br />
Moore subsequently put him in touch with legendary<br />
British director Tyrone Guthrie. Intrigued, Guthrie<br />
flew from England to Stratford to see if Patterson’s<br />
idea might be viable. He ended up becoming its<br />
first Artistic Director. Guthrie then persuaded Alec<br />
Guinness and Irene Worth to take the lead roles in<br />
Richard III. They both agreed.<br />
“Guthrie didn’t want an open-air theatre however,<br />
he wanted it under a tent,” Laura said. “But he<br />
wanted it surrounded with beautiful gardens so<br />
people wouldn’t think it was circus!”<br />
When Patterson’s idea of a Shakespeare summer<br />
festival became a reality, the tickets to the performances<br />
sold out. He didn’t know where all the tourists would<br />
stay. There were only two small hotels in the city at the<br />
time, The Queens and The Windsor.<br />
“Tom approached my parents in a panic, asking if<br />
they would allow tourists and artists into our home,<br />
just for the festival. My mother, reluctant at first, as<br />
she had four children at home at the time, responded<br />
by offering rooms,” Laura said. “Then she phoned<br />
all her bridge friends and asked them to do the same.<br />
I was quickly put to work to help out. I guess that’s<br />
how the hospitality industry in Stratford began!”<br />
The Festival soon changed lives, outlooks and<br />
opened new doors. Laura recalled Guthrie standing<br />
in the front hallway of their home and telling her<br />
mother never to refer to people who come here as<br />
tourists, but rather as theatre guests. “And I have<br />
never forgotten that,” she said.<br />
Not long after the Smiths started taking in guests,<br />
they began offering breakfasts too. Haidee would<br />
see people struggling to find a place to eat breakfast<br />
because the city didn’t have a lot of restaurants at the<br />
time and going out for breakfast wasn’t common in<br />
the 1950s. She said her mom soon began by putting<br />
on a pot of coffee and serving cereal topped with<br />
raspberries from their garden.<br />
Laura’s eyes danced as she reminisced about that<br />
first opening night, on July 13, 1953.<br />
“My brothers were ushers and it was sold out of course,<br />
so they lifted the tent flap and let me in. I sat on the<br />
steps of Aisle 6 and watched Alec Guinness come out<br />
on stage as Richard the Third. At 10 years of age, I<br />
did not understand the play, but I did remember the<br />
uproar of the audience at the end. I knew something<br />
very special had happened in Stratford.”<br />
The next year, the season was expanded to eight<br />
weeks and the number of plays presented grew to<br />
three. Early on, the refreshments available to theatre<br />
patrons were juice and ice cream. Laura worked<br />
on the juice cart and had to stay up late for the<br />
SUMMER <strong>2024</strong> • 11