Townshend, of course, wrote the music and lyrics for the play, which was inspired by The Who’s 1969 concept album of the same name.

Tommy is directed by former Festival artistic director Des McAnuff, who previously won a Tony Award for directing the musical in 1993.

The play opens May 30.

In 2011, the Festival had a surplus of $52,995.

The Festival looked back on the year that was at its annual general meeting Saturday.

“The work on our stages last year was outstanding,” said Festival artistic director Antoni. Cimolino. “Our only disappointment is that more people weren’t able to enjoy a season that received such widespread critical acclaim.

In a playbill featuring Shakespearean comedy, history and romance, along with ancient Greek tragedy, a Broadway musical, Gilbert and Sullivan and an American classic, outgoing artistic director Des McAnuff programmed seven Canadian works for the Festival in 2012, including a new musical  and two other new works emanating from the New Play Department. As a special 60th season event, Christopher Plummer also presented his one-man show, A Word or Two.

According to Cimolino, the Festival was  presented with a number of challenges in 2012 – people moving away from advance purchases to last-minute decisions, the continued effects of the economic slowdown, the high Canadian dollar and related issues affecting its American audience.

“These concerns were not ours alone, but are affecting the arts industry more generally,” he added. “Our mission is to meet these challenges creatively, and to do so we will be introducing a number of initiatives in 2013 and beyond.”

Earned revenue from ticket sales and other related activities generated $33.3 million in 2012. Donor contributions to annual operations were the highest in the Festival’s history, with contributed revenue totalling $13.3 million. The Endowment Foundation transferred $2.3 million to the annual budget. Government contributions totalled $5.4 million.

Upon realizing that the Festival was potentially heading toward a deficit situation, its leadership took swift action, introducing new marketing initiatives and cutting costs in-year without compromising the work on stage. In addition, the leadership addressed the 2013 budget, which was in the planning stages, to make every effort to avoid a second deficit.

Savings totalling $1.8 million were identified and have been carried through to 2013.

Cimolino’s plans for the future of the Festival under his tenure include selecting a playbill around a cluster of themes that can be further explored through the new Forum.

“The playbill for 2013, like those I have planned for subsequent seasons, will be more than the sum of its parts: individual titles will reflect, counterpoint and comment on each other in a variety of ways. Theatregoers can come here for a few days and become immersed in exploring various facets of a theme, through the works on stage and the offerings of the Forum.”

Cimolino’s vision for the future also includes the creation of the Laboratory, a place to experiment with new approaches to familiar work, explore classics from other cultures and create bold, large-scale new work.

This season, the first under artistic director Antoni Cimolino, features 12 productions, from classical to contemporary, with Shakespeare as the centerpiece.

The playbill has been designed to explore a number of themes related to community, and especially to communities in conflict and the role of the outsider in those communities.

“The plays and musicals we’re presenting in 2013 are extraordinary creations that explore the human condition in very different ways,” says Cimolino. “Presented by an exceptional company of actors and directors, who are among the finest in the world, these productions will open up lively conversations that can be further pursued through our many Forum events.”

Cimolino will direct The Merchant of Venice, with Brian Bedford as Shylock and Tom McCamus as Antonio, and Friedrich Schiller’s Mary Stuart, featuring Seana McKenna and Lucy Peacock with Ben Carlson, Brian Dennehy and Geraint Wyn Davies.

Bedford will also serve as director of Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit with Ben Carlson, Michelle Giroux, Seana McKenna and Sara Topham.

Dennehy will play Pozzo in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, with Stephen Ouimette as Estragon and Tom Rooney as Vladimir, under the direction of Jennifer Tarver.

And Peacock will take the lead in the world première of Judith Thompson’s The Thrill, an inspiring love story about two people on opposing sides of the right-to-die movement.

Martha Henry returns to direct Carmen Grant, Stephen Ouimette, Tom Rooney and Geraint Wyn Davies in Measure for Measure. Henry will also play the Prof in Taking Shakespeare, a new play by John Murrell, directed by Diana Leblanc, which is an exploration of another 2013 production, Othello, which will be directed by Chris Abraham and feature Graham Abbey, Bethany Jillard and Dion Johnstone.

Rounding out the Shakespeare offerings is Romeo and Juliet, featuring Daniel Brière and Sara Topham and directed by Tim Carroll.

Des McAnuff returns with his production of Tommy, the blockbuster musical he created with The Who’s Pete Townshend.

The main-stage musical, Fiddler on the Roof, is directed and choreographed by Donna Feore and features Kate Hennig and Scott Wentworth.

Also at the Festival Theatre is the family favourite The Three Musketeers, directed by Miles Potter and featuring Graham Abbey, Jonathan Goad, Luke Humphrey and Mike Shara.

“Stratford Behind the Scenes” presents an insider’s view of theatre as it’s never been seen before. It takes users from concept through creation to performance, offering exclusive video and photos of performers, coaches, directors and artisans, captured in dressing rooms, rehearsal halls and workshops, which are generally closed to public view.

“Thousands of visitors flock to our backstage tours each year,” says Festival executive director Anita Gaffney. “With this app, we’re able to offer a new version of that experience to an even wider audience, adding voices and experiences that go further than physical tours allow and pulling back the curtain on areas that have been largely off-limits in the past.”

Features of the app include:
• Interviews on such topics as the role of the director, the fate of the understudy, the challenges of set building, and the intricacies of wig making.
• Hundreds of breath-taking photos of every aspect of the theatrical process, some revealing what the actors do backstage between scenes.
• Time-lapse video of the daily “changeover,” in which stage hands strike the set of one production and reconstruct another in a span of less than two hours.
• 360-degree views of props and costumes from our archival collection.
• A series of costume sketches accompanied by audio descriptions by the designer.
• Transformation slideshows of actors preparing for a role.
• 3D tours of set designs.
• 360-degree views of the theatres and dressing rooms.

“The Festival is earning a reputation for leadership in the digital realm,” says Gaffney. “The digital media channel allows us to share a slice of our work with people from around the world and helps us to connect with young audiences. This new app employs techniques that draw the user into the theatre experience, animating it in a new and innovative way.

“It serves as inspiration for follow-up projects including study guides for students and teachers, and digital versions of our promotional materials in the future. The possibilities are exciting to contemplate.”

Inspired by the 60th season book of the same name, the “Stratford Behind the Scenes” app was created by Stratford Festival Digital Media – Lisa Middleton, Marc Raffa, Jason Clarke and David Cook – with app design and development by Storycode Inc. Along with its wealth of interactive features, the app includes the entire content of the original book with text by Don Gillmor and photography by Erin Samuell.

The iPad app is now available for $9.99 through the App Store. A PlayBook version will be released soon.

Major accessibility upgrades including a live audio description service for blind or low-vision patrons have earned the Stratford Festival special honour from the City of Stratford.

Sara Ropp and Jessica Jantzi, acting on behalf of the Stratford Accessibility Advisory Committee, presented the Festival’s director of human resources, Shelley Stevenson, with a certificate of recognition Monday evening.

The audio description service, introduced for select performances during the Festival’s 2012 season, supplements the spoken dialogue by feeding theatergoers with details about the sets, costumes and key on-stage actions via a headset.

The Festival received positive feedback about the service and will be doubling the number of shows offering it next season.

Some other notable accessibility improvements by the Festival in recent years include offering wheelchairs and different types of hearing aid receivers, adding elevators to all multi-level public buildings, special access and companion seating and Braille programs that can be downloaded off of its website.

In an effort to highlight the work many businesses and organizations are doing to remove barriers for people with disabilities in the city, the accessibility committee asked for nominations for the certificate.

Other groups that earned praise for their work included Royal LePage Hiller Realty, Barlow-Smisek Dentistry, and the Habitat for Humanity ReStore, which has undergone recent renovations to improve their front entrance and make the store less cumbersome and easier to maneuver.

Another nominee, Central United Church, formed its own accessibility committee to address needs within the congregation, even producing an educational DVD. The church has also applied for a grant to make its washrooms accessible.

As for the advisory committee, its members meets once a month to discuss a variety of accessibility issues and make recommendations to city council.

Members are currently in the stages of planning an accessibility information fair for this upcoming June that is  being coordinated in partnership with St. Marys’ and Perth County’s accessibility committees.

The committee also recently had a booth set up at the Rotary Complex to mark International Day of Persons with Disabilities, which this year fell on Dec. 3. The group plans on setting up again next year and inviting other community groups that contribute to making the city barrier-free.

“This is a dynamic and very talented group of directors,” says artistic director Antoni Cimolino. “They come from across Canada and have widely different experiences within the theatre but are united in their love for and dedication to staging the classics. We are very excited to welcome them to the Festival.

“Under the direction of accomplished director and teacher David Latham, we have focused the program to provide a more comprehensive and deeper learning experience with Shakespeare and the classics.”

The workshop, launched in 2010 and named for the Festival’s second artistic director, the late Michael Langham, is designed for directors in mid-career who have experience working with the classics but not at a theatre of the complexity and scope of the Festival.

Participants are given classes in text, voice, movement and other disciplines. Working with director-mentors, they serve as assistant directors during the season and are given the opportunity to present a classical piece of their own choosing to an invited audience.

A special advance online sale to members will be offered this Sunday, Nov. 11, beginning at noon.

Sales to the general public begin Jan. 5, with online advance sales beginning Jan. 4.

This season, the first under artistic director Antoni Cimolino, features 12 productions and a new initiative to enhance the play-going experience, The Forum, a series of  events planned around a cluster of themes that run through the playbill.

These themes explore the idea of communities, particularly communities divided, and the role of the outsider in society, through such plays as Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, Fiddler on the Roof, Othello, Mary Stuart and Tommy. The themes will be explored through interactive discussions, comedy events, music and film.

This season also sees the introduction of some new initiatives to improve the ticket-buying experience.

Stratford Social Ticketing is a new Facebook application that allows people to purchase tickets through their personal Facebook page.

The app allows users to create a Festival Facebook Event, where they can co-ordinate visits to Stratford with friends and family.

It even offers a seat selection function through which users can see where their Facebook friends will be sitting and select their own seats accordingly.

The free app can be downloaded at http://apps.facebook.com/stratfordsocial.

Sales to Facebook fans of the Festival will be able to buy their tickets on Jan. 3, ahead of the general public.

The Festival took the lead in developing the new app, partnering with the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Center Theater Group, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the San Francisco Ballet, the Seattle Repertory Theatre and the Segerstrom Center for the Arts.

The Festival is also introducing a pre-season promise, which allows advance ticket buyers to exchange their tickets without incurring additional costs.

Those who order before Jan. 31 will keep their pre-season ticket price while being able to exchange for the same performance type and seating zone without paying exchange fees.

In addition to holding ticket prices at last year’s levels, the Festival is offering the following:

• Up to 25 per cent off tickets purchased before Jan. 31. ·

• A new $20 ticket price for students (down from $25).

• A 50 per cent reduction in handling fees for all online purchases.

• A two-for-one promotion for tickets to Tuesday evening performances all season long (except opening nights).

• A number of free and low cost Forum events.

• Twice-daily bus service from Toronto at a cost of $10 each way.

“Our goal is to enhance the Stratford experience in as many ways as possible,” says executive director Anita Gaffney.

“We want people to enjoy not only the productions, but also the many Forum events we have planned. We hope that by introducing such things as Two-for-one Tuesdays, along with lower prices for students, reduced fees and an affordable twice-daily bus from Toronto, people will be able to come to Stratford more often or stay longer and immerse themselves in the theatre and the city.”

The 2013 season begins on April 23 and runs until Oct. 20, featuring Romeo and Juliet, Fiddler on the Roof, The Three Musketeers, The Merchant of Venice, Tommy, Blithe Spirit, Othello, Measure for Measure, Mary Stuart, Waiting for Godot and two new Canadian plays, Taking Shakespeare and The Thrill.

There’s an old theatre adage that goes: “If you don’t notice the lighting, it must be good.”

Robert Thomson never followed this rule. And the 35-year veteran of theatre lighting design is surprised to be in the limelight, after winning the 2012 Elinore & Lou Siminovitch Prize in Theatre.

“I’m pretty astonished, I must say,” Thomson told the Star.

“As a lighting designer, we’re often not the first discipline people think of (to award). Lighting is so ethereal and hard to capture. It’s something that only exists in the moment of the show.”

The $100,000 prize is the largest Canadian theatre award and honours professional directors, playwrights and designers for excellence and exploration in theatre.

Previous recipients include playwright Joan MacLeod and director Kim Collier.

Thomson’s career began at the Tarragon Theatre in Toronto. He became known for his passionate involvement in the creative process, rereading battered scripts and watching actors’ rehearsals, taking influence from every gesture of the play.

“Every time I start a new play, I approach it as a journey that is very much like one of the actors in the rehearsal hall,” he said. “Sometimes, the notes a director gives an actor are more valuable to me than sitting down and having a discussion about lighting.”

A true theatre lover, Thomson went on to work with the National Arts Centre, Canadian Stage, Citadel Theatre, National Ballet of Canada, and the Shaw and Stratford festivals, where he has put in 12 consecutive seasons.

His award-winning design for Robert Lepage’s Bluebeard’s Castle and Erwartung has been seen across Canada and around the world. Recalling that production, Thomson said he simply felt lucky to be a part of it.

“The best thing about theatre is that it’s collaborative and I have been very fortunate in the people I’ve worked with,” he said.

To that effect, the Siminovitch Award contains a protégé prize, in which the recipient gives $25,000 of the award to one or two up-and-comers in the field. Thomson chose two young lighting designers, Jason Hand and Raha Javanfar.

Thomson is currently designing a production of Red, the moody, cerebral play about artist Mark Rothko and a young apprentice, directed by Martha Henry, at Montreal’s Segal Centre.

He said he doesn’t like that adage about lighting, because it implies all you have to do is illuminate the stage. Instead, he sees his role as creating a foundation for the script, direction and acting to take flight.

“One of the most important things we can do is create a vista that contains the emotional suggestion of something and then let the actors do their job.

“You do have to get out of the way a little bit,” he said. “And don’t be afraid of the dark.”

As part of this mission, the theatre company is returning to the name Stratford Festival and unveiling a new logo.

“Stratford Festival is the name that we have used for most of our 60 years,” says Cimolino. “It is simple and direct, it resonates with people and it carries our legacy of quality and success. The name connects powerfully with audiences and allows us to best convey the breadth and depth of the seasons we are planning to present.

“We have discussed this idea for some time and it has broad support amongst artists and staff, as well as members of the board, who agreed this was the right time to make the change.”

Tickets for the 2013 season go on sale to members on Nov. 11 and to the general public Jan. 5. The playbill features Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, Measure for Measure, Othello, Fiddler on the Roof, The Three Musketeers, Tommy, Blithe Spirit, Mary Stuart, Waiting for Godot, and two new Canadian plays, The Thrill by Judith Thompson, and Taking Shakespeare, by John Murrell.

Cimolino has planned the 2013 season around a cluster of themes, especially the drama of communities – communities in conflict – and the role of the outsider in those communities.

“I was drawn to examining how we reach across our differences to find our common humanity with people we have identified as the ‘other,’ how we find healing. Because that’s what these plays are all about: bringing people together.”

Central to Cimolino’s vision for the Festival is the introduction of The Forum, a wide-ranging series of events that invite audiences to enjoy theatre in a deeper and more dynamic way, using the work they see on stage to spark ideas, raise questions and open the door to good-hearted and open-minded debate.

Panels, chats, debates and other interactive discussions, as well as keynote speakers, dramatic readings, concerts and other presentations, The Forum will be offered continuously throughout the season.

“We want to make it as easy and affordable as possible for people to get to Stratford,” says Festival executive director designate Anita Gaffney. “We’ve seen a growing demand for transportation from Toronto, especially as train and bus service has declined over the past two decades, so we’ve decided to step in to fill the gap.”

Called Stratford Direct – an expansion of the Saturday bus service launched in 1999 – the new service offers many improvements:

• Buses will depart from Toronto’s InterContinental Toronto Centre hotel, at the corner of Front and Simcoe streets, with easy access to Union Station.

• Service will be direct from Toronto to Stratford, with no stops.

• Service is available for both matinée and evening performances.

• Bus reservations, tickets and overnight accommodation can all be booked together through the Festival’s box office or website.

Some rare exceptions to the twice-daily service do apply on occasions when just one performance is running.

Details are available through the box office and are noted on the performance calendar.