50 Cents - Elizabeth II Ontario Stratford Festival

Issued as part of Canada's expanding commemorative fifty-cent program of the early 2000s, this piece marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Stratford Festival, which was founded in 1952 largely through the efforts of journalist Tom Patterson, who persuaded the classical director Tyrone Guthrie to anchor a world-class Shakespeare festival in a small Ontario railway town. The first season was staged under a tent. Within a decade, Stratford had become one of the most attended classical theatre festivals in North America.