Stratford

City and river port in southwest Ontario, Canada, on the Avon River; population (1991) 27,700. It is a railway centre, with six lines of the Canadian National Railway and repair shops. Industries include food-processing, and the manufacture of furniture, agricultural implements, textiles, and woollen goods. Since 1953 Stratford has held a major festival of Shakespearean and other drama, which now takes place annually from May to October.

Founded in the early 1830s, the city was named after Stratford-upon-Avon, England, birthplace of the Elizabethan playwright William Shakespeare.

Stratford's main centres for the performing arts are the Festival and Avon theatres, and the Third Stage.

Stratford

Area in the northeastern borough of Newham in London, England. It benefited from redevelopment programmes during the 1990s which saw the construction of new offices, and a new railway station paving the way for the opening of a Channel Tunnel rail link in 2007. Plans for London's bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games are also based on developments in the area.

A former industrial centre, it now houses a number of cultural attractions, such as the reopened Theatre Royal (1884), the East End theatre that became famous in the 1950s and 1960s as the home of the Theatre Workshop company under the direction of Joan Littlewood. In the 1990s, the theatre was extended and improved by Newham Council; the neighbouring Arts Centre, created at the same time, contains a gallery, cinema, and performance spaces. Other attractions and places of interest include the Stratford Circus, an unusual performing arts centre; Discover (2000), an interactive museum; The Old Dispensary, one of Stratford's oldest buildings; Stratford Old Town Hall, an imposing Victorian building; and the architecturally striking Stratford Station (1999) at the end of the Jubilee Line Tube extension.

Stratford

Town in Fairfield County, southwest Connecticut; population (1996) 49,400. It is situated at the mouth of the Housatonic River, on Long Island Sound, 8 km/5 mi northeast of Bridgeport. It is home to the American Shakespeare Theatre and was the site of an annual Shakespeare festival (1955–82). Local industries produce helicopters (Sikorsky), aircraft engines, roofing, plastics, industrial machinery, and brake linings; early activities included shipbuilding and oystering. The Bridgeport Municipal Airport is near the village of Lordship, on a peninsula to the southeast. Stratford was founded in 1639.