Local builder became a 'saviour' of the Stratford Festival

This relatively new street is named after Oliver Gaffney

In 1953, Oliver Gaffney, a Stratford construction company owner and builder, made it possible for the Stratford Shakespearean Festival to open on time. In fact, the Festival may not have opened at all if it had not been for Oliver Gaffney.
The Festival reports its early history and the contribution of Oliver Gaffney in this way: “A concrete amphitheatre was built to hold a revolutionary thrust stage conceived by Tyrone Guthrie and designer Tanya Moiseiwitsch — the same stage that is the heart of the Festival Theatre today.

“For the inaugural season, though, and the three that followed it, the stage and auditorium were housed under a giant canvas tent. The road to completion was fraught with difficulty. In May 1953, it........

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