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The Horse and His Boy, a World Premiere at the Shaw, Niagara-on-the-Lake

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Updated: Aug 7, 2022

Narnia on Stage Again at the Festival Theatre; April 6-July 21, 2019


-- 01 April 2019 | TMA


The Horse and His Boy adapted by Anna Chattertonp and roduced by the Shaw Festival is a world premiere.



Artistic Director, Tim Carroll, brings another novel of The Chronicles of Narnia to the Shaw Festival and welcomes a young audience back to Niagara. The collection, written by C.S. Lewis and set in the medieval period, is a series of seven books published between 1950 and 1956. The novels have been adapted for stage, film, and radio and today even video games. The best known text of the series is The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe which was adapted for stage by Adrian Mitchell and first produced in 1998 by The Royal Shakespeare Company. Then brought to the big screen by Andrew Adamson in 2005. Prince Caspian was produced for screen in 2008, followed by The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in 2010. The set of novels has also been dramatized for radio first by BBC Radio in 1980s and later by American Focus, between 1998-2002.


The Horse and His Boy was first staged in 1990 by Vanessa Ford Productions (London). The story focuses on two youths—a boy and a girl, Shasta and Aravis, who meet while fleeing to Narnia on horseback to escape a life of servitude and a pre-arranged marriage. Both learn they are riding horses from Narnia that were stolen by Calormenes, and both horses can speak and communicate with each other and their riders. The four together find themselves in a mission to save Narnia.


The novel has been adapted for stage by Anna Chatterton and directed and dramaturged at the Shaw by Christine Brubaker. According to Chatterton, “C.S. Lewis had wonderful messages in his novel: the great importance of being kind, gracious, forgiving; and seeing your flaws and having humility. These themes are ones we can all aspire to share” (Shaw Festival Playbill, 18). She believes this play is for everyone, a young and old audience. Her adaption of The Horse and His Boy produced by the Shaw Festival is a world premiere.


As the previous two productions of novels from the Chronicles staged at the Shaw, the theatre is making available pre-show workshops for families and teachers. https://www.shawfest.com/visit/groups-schools/


Contact TMA for support in teaching the novel.


See TMA SHOP for purchasing options of The Chronicles of Narnia and The Horse and His Boy






The Shaw Festival Theatre:

The First Fifty Years

(L.W. Conolly)













How to cite this blog:


TMA STaff. "The Horse and His Boy, a World Premiere at the Shaw, Niagara-on-the-Lake: Narnia on Stage Again at the Festival Theatre; April 6-July 21, 2019," Teaching the Middle Ages, April 1, 2019, https://www.teachingthemiddleages.com/post/the-horse-and-his-boy-a-world-premiere-at-the-shaw-niagara-on-the-lake.









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