The Hillsdale College Department of Theatre has hosted an annual trip to the Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada, for more than 30 years. This year, 13 students and three faculty departed for the trip on Sept. 5 and returned on Sept. 8.

The itinerary included five productions in four different theaters: “Get That Hope,” an original Canadian play in its premiere; “Cymbeline,” a Shakespearean romance; “Something Rotten!,” an upbeat comedy musical inspired by the life and work of Shakespeare; “Salesman in China,” the true story of a Chinese production of Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman;” and “Hedda Gabler,” a disruptive early modern tragedy.

The daily schedule of 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. shows left plenty of free time to explore the walkable storybook-type town of Stratford. Most of us began our mornings with window shopping, coffee, and homework. Then the matinee, dinner (sushi and takeout Thai were highlights), and an evening show, followed by drinks at the bar near our hotel and reviews of the day’s plays. 

I won’t forget about “Hedda Gabler” any time soon. The plot is jarring — a newly married woman manipulates her husband and friends because she’s “bored,” and her lies culminate in two suicides — and the production elements amplified the shock of the story. The show took place on a runway stage, meaning the audience watched from three different sides. Everyone experienced something different. It felt like peering in through a window, eavesdropping on a real conversation in a real living room — not watching a play. 

A chaise and fireplace were the only set pieces, but the lighting set the tone. When Hedda threw her ex-lover’s magnum opus into the flames, the entire room went dark, except for the red blaze of the fireplace. The glow slowly expanded outward until even the people around me were seemingly sitting in the fire and I had a knot in my stomach and a fear of what would happen next. The production didn’t need an impressive set to get us on the edge of our seats.

James Brandon, professor of theater and planner of this year’s trip, left the Saturday matinee slot empty to help us starving artists save money. Even so, we all declared “When in Canada,” and flashed our student IDs to score cheap tickets to a sixth show. The members of our group chose four different shows that afternoon — I chose “Twelfth Night” — and we reconvened at dinner to share our thoughts.

“Twelfth Night” was the weakest show I saw over the weekend, but even so, the opportunity to impulsively see a matinee doesn’t exist in small-town Hillsdale. I love seeing plays in Markel Auditorium, but that space can not produce the same effect that Hedda Gabler’s runway stage can. We have a talented student body, but we don’t have 70-year-old actors who seem like Arthur Miller reincarnated. The variety of resources available to professional productions like Stratford’s broadened my understanding of how a play can transform based on who performs it and where.