By Alan
Success is a strange phenomenon. Take the case of my birthplace. This spring it is building a million-and-a-half-dollar classical theatre that Montreal or Toronto might well envy. Yet four years ago it was just another railroad town, a farming centre, conservative and obscure. When anyone asked me where 1 was born 1 told them. "Stratford, in southwestern Ontario, about a hundred miles from Toronto."
Then Tom Patterson, a business-paper editor who was also born there, talked Stratford into backing a Shakespearean drama festival. In one summer it became one of the world's great cultural meccas, a success story that has been told in some fifty magazine articles, several books and a National Film Board movie. On opening night this city of 20.108 gets more space in the world's great newspapers than Ottawa gets in a month. Stratford has appeared on TV as far south as Mexico. Through the CBC the fiat Ontario accent of Stratford residents has been heard in Europe and South America. Now. when anyone asks me where I was born, all I need say is. "Stratford.”