Antoni Cimolino to Succeed Des McAnuff as Artistic Director of Stratford Shakespeare Festival

Antoni Cimolino will become the Artistic Director of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in 2013. Cimolino, who is the festival’s current General Director, will succeed Des McAnuff, who will step down at the end of the 2012 season.

“This is a day of enormous joy for me,” said Cimolino in a statement. “This great theatre changed my life as it has changed the lives of countless others in its almost 60 seasons. It has given me 25 years of growth as an artist and introduced me to wonderful people, great talents and a world of plays, characters and writing that have brought me as close as any man can be to heaven on earth.”

Cimolino first joined the Festival as an actor in 1988 in Romeo and Juliet. His many directing credits at the Festival include The Merry Wives of Windsor, Filumena, Bartholomew Fair, Coriolanus, As You Like It, King John, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Twelfth Night, The Grapes of Wrath, and The Night of the Iguana.

For the 2012 season, he will direct Cymbeline, with a cast that includes Graham Abbey, Tom McCamus, Cara Ricketts and Geraint Wyn Davies.

For TheaterMania’s most recent story on the 2012 Stratford Shakespeare Festival, click here.

For more information, visit www.stratfordshakespearefestival.com.