She was a world-renowned actor who captured the imagination of audiences on the silver screen for decades, but closer to home, Dame Maggie Smith is being remembered for her spellbinding work on an Ontario stage.
But in the ’70s and ’80s, with an Oscar win already under her belt, she appeared in several Stratford Festival productions.
“She wanted a chance to play a wider variety of parts. To really challenge herself on Shakespeare and the classics and Chekhov and other writers,” Antoni Cimolino, artistic director of the Stratford Festival recalls.
“We all know of Maggie Smith as being a kind of tough and very funny actor. But here at the festival and playing parts like Cleopatra or Rosalind in As You Like It, we saw a softer side of …