This free, virtual event will take place live on March 6 and feature scene performances of Stoppard’s best-known work
Toronto, February 23, 2021 – The Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) is pleased to announce the innovative interview and performance event Tom Stoppard: From Stage to Page with Hermione Lee, which will stream live and for free with registration on March 6, 2021 at 3pm (ET) on FestivalofAuthors.ca. The event will feature leading literary biographer Hermione Lee joined in conversation with acclaimed Canadian actor Fiona Reid to discuss Lee’s newest book, Tom Stoppard: A Life (Knopf 2021). The pair will explore Lee’s biography of Stoppard, who has been hailed widely as the world’s greatest living playwright, and discuss Lee’s first experience documenting a living subject. Punctuating the conversation and representing Stoppard’s broad oeuvre, will be a selection of prerecorded scene performances directed by David Storch, presented in partnership with Canadian Stage.
Tom Stoppard’s career spans twentieth century theatre and cinema, from his first produced stage play, the iconic Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in 1966, and the success of the film Shakespeare in Love in 1998 (co-written with Marc Norman), to his last and most autobiographical
work Leopoldstadt, performed on stage in early 2020. Lee will share her insights on Stoppard, derived from documenting the elusive and private man through her exploratory conversations with him directly, and her unprecedented access to his private papers and countless interviews with famous figures who knew him, including Felicity Kendal and Steven Spielberg.
“Toronto International Festival of Authors is proud to stand among the world’s top literary festivals offering innovative and accessible connection through storytelling in all its forms, especially as we continue to live and work digitally,” says Roland Gulliver, Director, TIFA. “This March we are thrilled to welcome the great Hermione Lee and Fiona Reid to TIFA’s virtual stage to celebrate the life of Tom Stoppard: a man whose work grows in relevance day by day, with its clever questioning of human existence and attempts to un-puzzle chaos.”
To register for free to watch Tom Stoppard: From Stage to Page with Hermione Lee, visit FestivalofAuthors.ca. The video will be available to watch for 72 hours, starting Saturday, March 6 at 3pm (ET).
As the global arts community continues to adapt to the effects of the COVID-19 virus, TIFA is as committed as ever to connecting readers and writers in safe and innovative new ways. We thank our donors and our funders, the Government of Canada – Department of Canadian Heritage, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council, and Ontario Creates, for their support and we look forward to continuing to offer free access to empowering literary content and experiences all year round.
ABOUT HERMIONE LEE
Hermione Lee was President of Wolfson College from 2008 to 2017 and is Emeritus Professor of English Literature in the English Faculty at Oxford University. She is a biographer and critic whose work includes biographies of Virginia Woolf (1996), Edith Wharton (2006) and Penelope Fitzgerald (2013, winner of the 2014 James Tait Black Prize for Biography and one of the New York Times best 10 books of 2014). She has also written books on Elizabeth Bowen, Philip Roth and Willa Cather, an OUP Very Short Introduction to Biography, and a collection of essays on life-writing, Body Parts. She was awarded the Biographers’ Club Prize for Exceptional Contribution to Biography in 2018. From 1998 to 2008 she was the Goldsmiths’ Professor of English Literature at Oxford. She is a Fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Society of Literature, and a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2003, she was made a CBE and in 2013 she was made a Dame for services to literary scholarship. Hermionelee.com
ABOUT FIONA REID
Fiona Reid is one of Canada’s best known stage actors, having performed in theatres across Canada, Great Britain and the US, including five seasons with the Stratford Festival and twelve seasons at the Shaw Festival. She is a recipient of the ACTRA Award of Excellence (2010), Order of Canada (2007), the Toronto Life Women of Distinction Award (2006), the Barbara Hamilton Memorial Award (2008), and the Toronto Critics Award (2015). Her film credits include My Big Fat Greek Wedding (1 & 2) and The Time Traveler’s Wife. Fiona recently appeared in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on Broadway. Fiona has also appeared in four productions of plays by Tom Stoppard: Night and Day, Arcadia, Indian Ink and Rock n Roll.
ABOUT THE TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF AUTHORS
The Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) inspires and empowers book lovers with a breadth of bold, ambitious and accessible literary experiences. As Canada’s largest literary festival, the charitable organization provides engaging opportunities to meet, hear and learn from the world’s best contemporary writers and thinkers, and to celebrate the power of stories. Since 1974, TIFA has presented over 9,500 authors, including 22 Nobel Laureates, who represent diverse perspectives and a range of literary genres for all ages. TIFA’s creative programmes continue to adapt to changing times, capturing the most innovative and enlightening forms of storytelling, on stage and online. Alongside the flagship Festival, TIFA delivers a year-round programme of events and activities that reflect Toronto to its residents, its literature to the nation, and its creative ambition to the world. TIFA will celebrate the 42nd edition of the Festival October 20–31, 2021.