SOURCE: "Canada's Permanent Elizabethan Theatre," in Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. VIII, No. 4, Autumn, 1957, pp. 511-14.

After four very successful years in a tent, the Shakespeare Festival at Stratford, Ontario, is now housed in an exciting new theatre. From the outside, with its circular scalloped roof fluting into deep folds like some great nun's coif and topped by a jaunty coronet flying two flags, it still retains the carnival atmosphere which the tent had. Inside, the stage designed by Tanya Moiseiwitsch and Tyrone Guthrie remains relatively unchanged.

There is a large main stage jutting thirty-four feet into the audience and a triangular balcony at the back with steps leading up to it on each side. There are four large steps round the main stage and two platforms halfway up the stairs. There are thus seven levels of playing in the open and a large trapdoor which gives access to an...