The Bard: Doing great things for 21 years

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Bard on the Beach celebrates its 21st season this summer.

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Published: May 27, 2010 4:49 a.m.

Last modified: May 27, 2010 4:51 a.m.

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This season from June 3 to September 25, the red and white tents will once again don the scenic waterfront setting of Vanier Park for Bard on the Beach, a Shakespeare Festival going 21 years strong.

The festival’s artistic director Christopher Gaze says a friend recently made a comment, what could be said to be a telltale sign that Bard has really done something great for the theatre scene in Vancouver.

“If you had said 40 years ago that in the year 2010 we would have a profoundly successful and high quality Shakespeare festival with nearly 100,000 people a year who come to see it, he would have said ‘Wow. Are you sure?’ But that’s what we have now.”

Gaze brings seasoned experience to the helm of the not-for-profit organization and says this year’s plays are a rich and varied selection with Much Ado About Nothing, Antony and Cleopatra, Henry V, and Falstaff, an adaptation of Henry IV, Parts I and II.

Last summer, Bard celebrated its one millionth patron and Gaze says the festival that he founded has come a long way from its humble beginnings back in 1990 when they put on one show in a rented tent with $35,000.

The budget has now grown to almost $4 million with an average capacity of 98.2 per cent in the last three years with about 225 performances per season, says Gaze.

“What Bard has accomplished is astonishing. An amazing success story in the arts in this city, in this country, or anywhere for that matter,” Gaze says. “It’s become a high quality event.”

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