Tom Patterson Theatre | Stratford Festival — Attraction in Stratford

Gorgeous theatre. Set in a beautiful locale at the side of the river with swans, herons, and rowing teams on it. The theatre is all gleaming glass and bronze-coloured metalwork and is stunning. There is a large paid parking area and on-street parking available. Inside there is loads of space for the cafe, gift shop, and many seating areas (standing tables, seated tables, and soft settee areas), and includes an outdoor patio accessible from the cafe area. The bathrooms are large, accessible, and very clean and well-stocked with paper and free sanitary items. The theatre area is staffed by very helpful, friendly, and well-informed personnel. The theatre is such that there really is no such thing as a bad seat. There is a stage that projects out into the room which is surrounded on three sides by banked seating. The stairs are steep and have handrails on both sides, but, for those needing help with using stairs, the staff are quick to offer either a helping hand or access to an elevator that goes to the stage...

There was an old lady working at the gift store in this theatre. I was walking in by myself and she started starring at me the whole time. I looked back at her. She eventually (and begrudgingly) nodded her head and said hi. Then the other 2 girls quickly started telling me that there’s 5 minutes before the play starts (basically telling me to leave). I simply had walked into the store and it had not even been a minute. The only thing I could think of is that they didn’t want me to be there. I didn’t feel welcome at all. I guess this is expected from an older lady who isn’t used to people like her. She judged me from the minute she saw me and wanted me to leave and I was barely in the store! She should retire and move on. My experience at Stratford (aside from this) was great! Everything else was fantastic. But that old lady at the gift store should get another job. She’s not qualified to...

The theatre has ample parking and is well located in town with a nice lobby, good range of snacks/drinks and lots of seating for pre-show and intermission, but we felt that it fell short in two areas. The theatre seats were very uncomfortable...firm bottom and back to the seats, very flat and a bit short on the seat back. As a 6'2" guy, my back was aching by the end of the show. The other was acoustics. I have been going to Stratford for years and found the actor's speech very muffled. They were seasoned actors so I doubt it was a projection issue, but other theatres by design tend to acoustically amplify the speech...everything just sounded dull and muffled to our whole group...made it that much harder to follow...