Director, dramaturge and teacher Robert McQueen will take you on his quest to bring The Man of La Mancha, to the Stratford Festival stage at 12:30 p.m. Friday, April 4 in Conron Hall, University College.
McQueen’s Western lecture is free and open to the public.
The lecture comes on the heels of the French Department’s recent sold-out productions of Jean Pierre Ronfard’s Don Quichotte, directed by French Studies professor Mario Longtin, as well as Hispanic Studies professor Marjorie Ratcliffe’s two Don Quixote classes this term.
McQueen has directed theatre and opera productions across Canada and the United States, and internationally in Latin America, Cambodia and Japan. He is proud of his association with Acting Up Stage Company in Toronto, for whom he has directed The Light in the Piazza, Caroline, or Change and Falsettos and serves as director of NoteWorthy, their New Works Development Project. McQueen has also worked on the development of new musicals and opera with Vancouver Opera, the Canadian Opera Company, Cambodian Living Arts (Phnom Penh), the O’Neill Center (Connecticut) and CAP 21 in New York.
The Man of La Mancha marks McQueen’s debut at the Stratford Festival.
The musical showcases poet and playwright Miguel de Cervantes attempts to write the epic adventure, Don Quixote. Awaiting trial by the Inquisition, Cervantes is assailed by his fellow prisoners, who try to seize the manuscript of his masterpiece. His inspired response: A challenge to join him in staging his stirring tale of Quixote’s obsessive quest to attain an impossible dream.