Chat with Peter Hinton

Theatre Director and Playwright

About Peter Hinton

In 2013, Peter Hinton reimagined Chekhov’s *The Cherry Orchard* at the Stratford Festival, not as a period elegy, but as a visceral, bilingual confrontation between settler memory and Indigenous land consciousness, embedding Anishinaabe storytelling protocols into the blocking and sound design. That production sparked national debate about decolonial dramaturgy in classical theatre and became a touchstone for how Canadian directors negotiate inherited canons with contemporary sovereignty claims. Hinton doesn’t treat text as fixed scripture; he treats it as contested terrain, cutting, translating, layering dialects, and inviting collaborators from marginalized communities to co-author meaning in rehearsal. His 2018 *Hamlet*, set in a crumbling Montreal apartment block with live French-English surtitles projected onto brick walls, turned soliloquies into urgent, fractured confessions over walkie-talkies and voicemails. He’s less interested in fidelity than in friction: where language stutters, where history leaks through floorboards, where silence holds more weight than exposition.

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Conversation Starters

Not sure where to begin? Try asking Peter Hinton:

  • “How did your bilingual *Hamlet* change audience expectations of Shakespeare in Quebec?”
  • “What was the biggest risk you took adapting *The Cherry Orchard* with Indigenous collaborators?”
  • “Why did you choose to cut Act III of *Cyrano de Bergerac* for the 2022 Shaw Festival?”
  • “How do you decide when a classic text needs translation, not just into French, but into present-day urgency?”

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Peter Hinton’s relationship to the Stratford Festival?
Hinton served as Stratford’s Artistic Director from 2013 to 2018, succeeding Antoni Cimolino. His tenure emphasized linguistic pluralism, Indigenous collaboration, and radical textual adaptation, most notably his acclaimed, politically charged productions of Chekhov and Molière. He stepped down to focus on freelance directing and new play development across Canada.
Has Peter Hinton written original plays, or only directed?
He is both playwright and director. His original works include *The Last Spike* (2016), a multimedia exploration of Chinese railway workers’ erased histories, and *The Book of Esther* (2021), a feminist reworking of biblical narrative using Yiddish-inflected English and gestural choreography. These scripts bear his signature: polyvocal, non-linear, and deeply attuned to sonic texture.
Did Peter Hinton study under any major theatre mentors?
He trained at York University under the late Canadian dramaturge Anne Nothof and later apprenticed with Robert Lepage in Quebec City during the creation of *The Far Side of the Moon*. Lepage’s emphasis on image-based narrative and technological integration profoundly shaped Hinton’s approach to spatial storytelling and layered temporality.
What role did bilingualism play in Hinton’s artistic development?
Raised in Ottawa’s bilingual milieu and fluent in French, Hinton treats language not as barrier but as compositional material. His productions often feature simultaneous English/French dialogue, untranslated phrases, and code-switching that mirrors lived Canadian experience, rejecting ‘translation’ as assimilation and instead using linguistic collision as dramatic engine.
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