Classic Theatre Festival

Enjoy professional productions of classic hits from Broadway and the London stage at the historic Arts Court Theatre in downtown Ottawa.

The Classic Theatre Festival has been entertaining summer audiences with crowd-pleasing comedies, thrillers, mysteries and satirical plays since 2010. Launched in Perth, Ontario, it moved to Ottawa in 2022. With an award-winning artistic team and some of Canada’s top theatre artists, it stages Broadway smashes such as Pygmalion and Same Time, Next Year.

The festival’s 122-seat venue, the Arts Court Theatre, is an intimate space that brings audiences up close to the performers. It’s housed in a converted courthouse dating back to 1871.

Affairs of State: Affairs of State is a classic, rediscovered post-WW2 comedic gem, a funny and intriguing story about the diplomatic deals and double crosses behind closed doors in Washington featuring a memorable love quadrangle that threatens the appointment of a new Under-Secretary of State. It’s a chance to revisit an age when satirical comedies were sophisticated, smart, sassy, insightful and fun. It’s a show that evokes the post-war optimism that infuses so many of the era’s stories on stage and screen. And most remarkable of all, Democrats and Republicans speak civilly with one another!