They're cranking up the marquee star power at next year's Stratford Festival.

Acting legend and theatre icon Christopher Plummer leaves Broadway and Hollywood movie sets behind, returning to Stratford to play Julius Caesar.

And -- in a move to draw in younger audiences -- his leading lady in Caesar and Cleopatra will be Dreamgirls co-star Anika Noni Rose, 34.

On stage, she earned a Tony Award for her 2004 feature role in Caroline, or Change in New York.

In Dreamgirls, Rose worked side-by-side with superstar Beyonce and Jennifer Hudson, who picked up the best supporting-actress Oscar for her role in that movie, which earned eight Academy Award nods.

Des McAnuff, who will direct the Shaw play, said the pair "get on like a house on fire."

The Toronto-born Plummer, 77, last worked in Stratford in 2002 in a resplendent performance as King Lear -- which he also did in a 10-week run at New York's Lincoln Centre -- and garnered a Tony Award nomination.

The festival enjoyed its best season that year and officials believe Plummer will again attract the masses.

"He's one of the great actors of our time. To have him back on the festival stage is very important to us," said festival general manager Antoni Cimolino.

"He is on the one hand, extremely real. On the other hand, he is daring and theatrical and dangerous."

In a bid to ward off controversy for moving in on the territory of the relatively close Shaw Festival at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Cimolino contacted the Shaw's artistic director, Jackie Maxwell, ahead of time with news of their play choice.

"We don't usually do plays by Shaw because down the road we have a company that does them extremely well," Cimolino said.

"But in this case, given the combination of the play, this actor and our times, we felt it was time to do this project," Cimolino said.

He said although the news has been out only a short time, some Stratford bed and breakfast establishments are already fully booked for next August.

The festival also announced that the perennially popular musicals Cabaret and The Music Man and will also be on the 2008 playbill.

"They're both gems. They're both musical scores and books that have a lot to say about who we are," Cimolino said.

The festival box office will open Dec. 1 to sell 2008 tickets. This is a month earlier than usual. By that time the company name change, announced last month -- Stratford Shakespeare Festival -- will be in place.

It is hoped the name will reflect the emphasis the festival places on Shakespeare.

Cimolino also says the season is a starting point for refocusing Stratford as an international destination, a "place that really presents thrilling productions of Shakespeare and the classics."

He said this year the festival is enjoying a good season with 20,000 more people in the seats than last year.

"Earlier in the summer, we were down in the United States (in sales) and we were up substantially in Canada. Now . . . things have really picked up in the U.S."
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ANIKA NONI ROSE

Born Bloomfield, Conn.

Played Lorrell Robinson in Academy Award-nominated Dreamgirls in 2006.

Finished filming One Part Sugar, with co-stars Danny Devito and Justin Long. (No release date)

Earned Tony award in 2004 as best featured actress in a musical for Caroline, or Change.

CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER

Born in Toronto and raised in Montreal.

Performed in close to 20 roles at the Stratford Festival, beginning in 1956.

In more than 200 movie/TV appearances and countless stage roles.

Worked on stage as Henry Drummond in a revival of Inherit the Wind on Broadway earlier this year, earning a Drama Desk Award nomination as well as his seventh Tony nomination.

Stars with Shirley MacLaine in Closing the Ring, a Second World War drama, which will be released later this year.

Joined Orchestra London for a 2005 gala, enchanting 900 listeners with Shakespeare's words combined with music.

Received honorary doctorate of laws degree from the University of Western Ontario in 2004.

Headlined a Royal Christmas at the John Labatt Centre with Julie Andrews in 2002 in front of 9,000. Also starred with Andrews in the 1965 hit movie Sound of Music. Kathy Rumleski is a Free Press entertainment reporter; call 519-667-5518.

E-MAIL: krumleski@lfpress.com

WEB: www.stratford-festival.on.ca

(AP) George Bernard Shaw will join William Shakespeare next season at the Stratford Festival of Canada, with Christopher Plummer starring as Julius Caesar in a revival of Shaw's "Caesar and Cleopatra."

Appearing opposite Plummer as a young queen of the Nile will be Anika Noni Rose, who appeared off- and on Broadway in the musical "Caroline, or Change" and in the film version of "Dreamgirls."

The casting was announced Tuesday by Antoni Cimolino, the festival's general director. Plummer, long a favorite at the festival, last appeared there in 2002 in a production of "King Lear" that later was seen at Lincoln Center in New York.

Des McAnuff, one of the festival's three new artistic directors, will direct "Caesar and Cleopatra," only the third time in the more than 50-year history of the Ontario-based theater that it has done a Shaw play. Shaw is showcased prominently at another Canadian theatrical institution, the Shaw Festival at Niagara-on-the-Lake.

Cimolino also said the Stratford Festival will produce two musicals in 2008: "Cabaret," directed by Amanda Dehnert, a resident director at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, R.I., and "The Music Man," directed by Susan H. Schulman, a Stratford regular who this season directed a stage version of Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird."

Besides "Caesar and Cleopatra," McAnuff will also direct "Romeo and Juliet" next season at Stratford, which will get a name change in November _ the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. Among the other Shakespeare productions planned for 2008 are "Hamlet," "The Taming of the Shrew," "All's Well That Ends Well" and "Love's Labour's Lost."
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On the Net:
http://www.stratfordfestival.ca