Canada's contemporary theatre reflects a rich diversity of regional and cultural identities.[1] Since the late 1960s, there has been a concerted effort to develop the voice of the 'Canadian playwright', which is reflected in the nationally focused programming of many of the country's theatres.[2][3] Within this 'Canadian voice' are a plurality of perspectives - that of the First Nations, new immigrants, French Canadians, sexual minorities, etc. - and a multitude of theatre companies have been created to specifically service and support these voices.[4]
Prominent playwrights, practitioners, and contributors
The Annapolis Basin in Nova Scotia served as the cradle for both French and English language theatre in Canada.[5]Théâtre de Neptune, performed in 1606, was the first European theatre production in North America.
The tradition of English theatre in Canada also started at Annapolis Royal. In Fort Anne, Nova Scotia, plays were produced for Prince of Wales' birthday.[6]George Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer was produced on Saturday, 20 January 1733 to celebrate the birthday of Frederick, Prince of Wales.[6] When he was a Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia, Paul Mascarene translated Molière's French play The Misanthrope in to English and produced several plays in 1743 and 1744.[6] An unknown play was also staged on 20 January 1748 for the Prince's birthday, and it was restaged on 2 February 1748.[6]
Plays
Lescarbot's Neptune Theatre 1606
Molière's Tartuffe Scandal 1693
Halifax Prologue 1776
Sullen Indian Prologue 1826
Eight Men Speak 1933 (at Toronto's Standard Theatre)
Theatre was banned in French Canada by the Catholic clergy in 1694,[7] but after Canada became British in 1763, theatrical activity begun to flourish, foremost among the British garrisons and within amateur theatre.
Antoine Foucher (1717-1801), of Terrebonne (father of Louis-Charles Foucher), was the owner of the first Francophonetheatre in Canada. In 1774, with various Britishofficers, he staged the first production of Molière at his home in Montreal.[8][9][10] Other Garrison performances were private shows put on for troops, publicly performed by officers, which helped bridge theatre and war during its initial stages of development. It was welcomed by the populaces and distracted soldiers from war and routine military protocol.[11]
The first professional theatre company was Allen's Company of Comedians, which made its first performance in Montreal in 1786, and was followed by the all male French language amateur society Les Jeunes Messieurs Canadiens in Quebec City in 1789.[12] From 1790 to 1840, amateur theatre was regularly performed at the Haymarket Theatre in Quebec City.[13]
Officially opened on the 24th of June 1893 in Montreal, the Monument National is located at the historical interface between the Francophone neighbourhoods (to the east) and the Anglophone areas (to the west), it also found itself in the heart of the Jewish and Chinese sections on the most multiethnic street in the city.[14]
In the West, the Grand Theatre was built in 1912 in Calgary by the visionary Sir James Lougheed.[17] The Grand was the initial home of many arts organizations in Calgary; the first theatre, opera, ballet, symphony concerts, and movies were seen here. This theatre was the centre of social, cultural, and political life in Calgary until the early 1960s. The Grand Theatre has been saved from demolition in 2004 by the company Theatre Junction and its director Mark Lawes.[17]
From 1929, Martha Allan founded the Montreal Repertory Theatre and later co-founded the Dominion Drama Festival.[18] She loathed amateur theatre, but her energies spearheaded the Canadian Little Theatre Movement at a time when live theatre in Montreal and across Canada was being threatened by the rapid expansion of the American-influenced movie theatre. She almost single-handedly laid the groundwork for the development of the professional modern Canadian theatre scene.
Theatre of the 1950s
Plays
Teach Me How To Cry 1955 Patricia Joudry
Theatre companies and groups
Hudson Players Club 1948 (Hudson, Qc) founded by the collective group of HPC
Nightwood Theatre 1979 (Toronto, feminist), founded by Cynthia Grant, Kim Renders, Mary Vingoe and Maureen White
Workshop West Theatre 1979 Gerry Potter Artistic Director (Edmonton)
Roseneath Theatre 1979 (Toronto, theatre for young audiences), founded by David S Craig and Robert Morgan
Events
With Canada's centennial in 1967 came a growing awareness of the need to cultivate a national cultural identity. Thus, the 1970s were marked by the establishment of multiple theatre institutions dedicated to the development and presentation of Canadian playwrights, such as Factory Theatre,[3]Tarragon Theatre,[21] and the Great Canadian Theatre Company.[22]Theatre Passe Muraille, under Paul Thompson's directorship in the 1970s, gained a national reputation for its distinctive style of collective creation with plays such as The Farm Show, 1837: The Farmer's Revolt and I Love You, Baby Blue.[23]
In 1971 a group of Canadian playwrights issued the Gaspé Manifesto as a call for at least one-half of the programing at publicly subsidized theatres to be Canadian content. The numerical goal was not achieved, but the following years saw an increase in Canadian content stage productions.[24][25]
The 1980s and 1990s saw a flourish of experimental theatre companies cropping up across Canada, many of whom were exploring site-specific and immersive staging techniques, such as Toronto's DNA Theatre[26] and Vancouver's Radix Theatre.[27]
The 2000s saw the creation of several theatre companies with specific cultural mandates including Obsidian Theatre, a company supporting 'the Black voice',[28] fu-GEN, a company dedicated to work by Asian Canadians,[29] and Aluna Theatre, a company with a focus on Latin Canadian artists.[30]
This decade also was a particularly significant for the rise of devised performance practices across the country, particularly in Vancouver through artists graduating from Simon Fraser University and the creation of the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival in 2006, as well as in Halifax with the founding of Zuppa Theatre. Devised and creation-based models of theatre making continued to be underrepresented in the larger regional theatre system of the country.
videocan
In 2019, videocan was founded as the first nationally focused video archive with the project of archiving and making accessible documentation of theatre, dance, and live art from across Canada, in both English and French.
The heritage village of Fort Steele includes the Wild Horse Theatre, which produces a historic revue starring professional actors during the summer months.
Gabriola Island is home to the Gabriola Theatre Festival, which produces twelve shows over one weekend in August.
Calgary is home to Theatre Calgary, a mainstream regional theatre; Alberta Theatre Projects, a major centre for new play development in Canada; the Calgary Animated Objects Society; Vertigo Theatre, the premiere theatre in North America for the intrigue genre; Theatre Junction a multidisciplinary collective directed by Mark Lawes; One Yellow Rabbit, a touring company; and Urban Curvz, a feminist theatre company rebranded as Handsome Alice Theatre in 2016. Calgary is also home for expert marionetteer, Ronnie Burkett. Calgary is the base of operations of Loose Moose Theatre, which performs improvisational theatre. Other companies, some of which specialize in new plays, include Sage Theatre, Downstage Theatre, Ground Zero Theatre, The Shakespeare Company, StoryBook Theatre and Lunchbox Theatre.
Lethbridge is the home of New West Theatre, a professional theatre company. Theatre Outré also operates out of Lethbridge and presents theatrical content, subject matter, styles and forms that are alternative to what is currently offered in the community.
Regina features Saskatchewan's only permanent arena theatre, the Globe Theatre, as well as On Cue Performance Hub, a professional shared platform for independent performing artists.
Drayton Entertainment has seven stages at six theatres across Ontario including the Drayton Festival Theatre in Drayton, Hamilton Family Theatre Cambridge in Cambridge, Huron Country Playhouse in Grand Bend, King's Wharf Theatre in Penetanguishene, and St. Jacobs Country Playhouse and the Schoolhouse Theatre in St. Jacobs.
Kingston is home to its own professional company, Theatre Kingston, the Vagabond Repertory Theatre Company, as well as many amateur and student theatre groups. In nearby Gananoque, the Thousand Islands Playhouse features professional productions in two venues.
Oshawa is home to Oshawa Little Theatre (http://oshawalittletheatre.com) founded in 1928 and running continuously since 1950; offers 4 productions a year as well as a youth group production. It runs out of its own facility on Russet Ave. since 1983.
Toronto has a large and vibrant theatre scene, centred around the Toronto Theatre District, with many different companies. Some produce large-scale Broadway-style productions (produced by companies like Mirvish Productions), and others produce smaller-scale plays by Canadian and other playwrights. Some of the major theatre companies of Toronto include: Canadian Stage Company, Tarragon Theatre, Theatre Passe-Muraille, the Factory Theatre, Soulpepper Theatre Company, the Lower Ossington Theatre and Buddies in Bad Times. The Harbourfront Centre's World Stage festival presents innovative contemporary performance from national and international companies. Toronto has several theatre festivals throughout the year, including The Next Stage Festival in January, the Toronto Fringe Festival in June, and SummerWorks in August. Important smaller companies include Native Earth, Nightwood Theatre, Necessary Angel, Crow's Theatre, Obsidian Theatre, Acting Upstage, and Volcano. 2012 saw a surge of storefront theatres opening in the city including Videofag and The Storefront Theatre.[34]
St. John's has the RCA (Resource Centre for the Arts), an artist-run company that is based at the LSPU Hall. It also has the St. John's Arts and Culture Centre, with a 1,000 seat main theatre.
Clarenville, Newfoundland is the home to The New Curtain Theatre Company, which operates as a year-round professional theatre based out of The Loft Theatre at the White Hills Ski Resort in Clarenville (2 hours west of St. John's).
Cupids, Newfoundland is home to The New World Theatre Project, which aims to do work from and inspired by the year 1610, when Cupids was settled as Canada's first English colony.
Stephenville, Newfoundland and Labrador, on the west coast of the island of Newfoundland, features the annual Stephenville Theatre Festival, a summer festival that began in the mid-1970s.
In Corner Brook, the Grenfell Campus of Memorial University offers a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Theatre, with productions staged every semester.
^David Gardner's thesis, "An Analytic History of the Theatre in Canada: the European Beginnings to 1760," and his article "British Garrison Theatre in Canada during the French Regime"
^ abDonald B. Smith (2005). Calgary's Grand Story: The Making of a Prairie Metropolis from the Viewpoint of Two Heritage Buildings. University of Calgary Press.
^Roderick MacLeod and Eric John Abrahamson (2010). Spirited Commitment: The Samuel and Saidye Bronfman Family Foundation. McGill-Queen's Press. p. 163.
Bhabha, Homi. Editor's Introduction: Minority Maneuvers and Unsettled Negotiations.
"Cosmopolitanisms." Public Culture 12.3. 2000. pp. 577–89.
Critical Inquiry 23.3. 1997. pp. 431–50.
Robinson, Amy (1994). "'It Takes One to Know One': Passing and Communities of Common Interest." Critical Inquiry 20. pp. 715–36.
"Summary," In Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade/Ministère des affairs étrangères et du commerce international. Canada in the World. 1999. Rpt. Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade/Ministère des affairs étrangères et du commerce international Home Page. 2001.
Wagner, Anton, ed. Contemporary Canadian Theatre: New World Visions, a Collection of Essays Prepared by the Canadian Theatre Critics Association. Toronto: Simon & Pierre, 1985. 411 p. ISBN0-88924-159-7
Young, Robert (2001). Postcolonialism: an Historical Introduction. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
L.W. Conolly Theatre Archives at University of Guelph, Archival and Special Collections, which holds more than 150 archival collections related to Canadian theatre
