bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Upfront
Authors: Rubin Don
Published: June 2023

It would be hard to imagine the Charlottetown Festival without Anne of Green Gables but it almost happened this season when Festival management and the show’s authors, Don Harron and Norman Campbell, found that they couldn’t agree on a long-term contract. The two sides, in fact, had been negotiating for the last three years to set up a 15-year agreement. Last November, terms for such an agreement had apparently been worked out. The authors’ lawyers, however, brought up new arguments and the Centre’s Board turned down further revisions offering to go back to the year-by-year agreement. Harron and Campbell refused and Anne came as close as ever to disappearing. A new contract was, however, signed giving Harron and Campbell eight per cent royalties for the present and allowing the Festival to play it for another season as well as to tour it next year. Beyond that, though, no one can say.
French Lesson at the Comedie
Authors: Burkom Bernard
Published: June 2023

The Comédie Français recently opened a most remarkable and instructive production of Tartuffe. This production, directed by Jean Paul Roussillon, is remarkable because it audaciously presents the play as a tragedy. It is instructive that such a radical re-interpretation of a comic classic could occur within the hallowed halls of the Palais Royale, this most conservative company’s home for three centuries.
Finding the Roots
Authors: Cruz Victoria Santa
Published: June 2023

What is indigenous culture? What do we mean when we talk about folk tradition? What relationship do these things have to the more intellectual European traditions that tend to be followed in Canada? Why should we care and what can we learn from them? Victoria Santa Cruz, one of South America’s most respected and most eloquent theatre artists has been working in the folk tradition in her native Peru for many years. This past fall, she visited a number of North American universities including Yale, Carnegie-Mellon and Toronto’s York University. Her visit to York came only a matter of weeks after an international Indigenous Theatre Celebration was held in Toronto (see CTR 28 for an overview report on that event). During the course of her Toronto visit she was asked specifically about the nature and significance of the folk tradition. The following is an edited version of remarks made during that week. It was edited for CTR by Mimi Mekler and Don Rubin.
Indigenous Peoples: Speaking with Pride
Authors: Beaupre Therese
Published: June 2023

The following section has been written by many people from many countries. It has been culled by CTR from the taped proceedings of the first native people’s Indigenous Theatre Celebrations held in Toronto this past summer, and reflects something of the spirit of that gathering.
Blyth’s New View
Authors: Blyth Trish Wilson
Published: June 2023

Janet Amos admits she was nervous last fall and understandably so. From founder and artistic director James Roy she had inherited the Blyth Summer Festival, a unique summer success on the Canadian theatre scene. Here in the middle of Western Ontario farming country in a hamlet of 900 people existed a theatre dedicated to the still rare effort of producing all-Canadian fare. Much of it was in the form of untried new scripts, presented to a conservative rural audience often loud in condemnation of what they considered smut. This was the same Blyth, for the record, that became notorious a few years back for the book-banning activities of its school board.
Interview: Eugene Ionesco
Authors: Kraft Barbara
Published: June 2023

Romanian-French playwright Eugene Ionesco has not granted many interviews in the course of his long and distinguished career. An extended interview with him is therefore of considerable significance. CTR is therefore pleased to be able to publish the following interview done by Barbara Kraft for National Public Radio in the United States. Edited for reasons of space, it was conducted this past spring during an international colloquium on Ionesco’s work at the University of Southern California. It appears in print for the first time anywhere.
An Exclusive Interview: View From The Top
Authors: Faulkner Hugh
Published: June 2023

The office of Secretary of State is a portfolio with many responsibilities, not the least of which is to act as a spokesman for and to the arts community. In effect, the Secretary of State is Canada’s Minister of Culture and all national matters relating to the arts and culture become the responsibility of his office. Peterborough Educator Hugh Faulknerwas appointed to that cabinet position in 1972 and shortly after his appointment made several additions to his Arts and Culture staff including former Montreal Star Drama Critic Zelda Heller who was named Director of the Performing Arts Division. The following interview — one of the first public in-depth discussions on his role as Secretary of State — was conducted in Peterborough in early June.
The Liberal Program
Authors: Faulkner Hugh
Published: June 2023

The following is a Liberal Party policy statement relating to the Performing Arts in Canada. The statement was written for CTR by the Hon. Hugh Faulkner, Secretary of State.
Omphale and the Hero
Authors: Herbert John
Published: June 2023

Caution: Omphale and the Hero is fully protected by copyright. All inquiries concerning production of the play including scenes from it should be directed to the author c/o Canadian Theatre Review. French translation by Alain Brunet (1972). German translation by Hilde Lanman and Edith Platzer (1973).
Toronto
Authors: Boru Brian
Published: June 2023

The Government of the Province of Ontario is now and has for some time been closely identified with corporate business interests. Ontario’s official performing arts culture (the National Ballet, the Canadian Opera Company, the Toronto Symphony, the Stratford Festival, the Shaw Festival, the Guelph Spring Festival, and so on) is also closely aligned to corporate interests and serves to reflect those attitudes which corporate interests accept. At its very best, this brand of culture is clean, ordered, reassuring and mass-entertaining. There are fortunately, however, still some artists in Ontario who have so far evaded the smothering corporate embrace and have retained a measure of critical autonomy. But even for these, the last of the dissidents, the time has come. The Province of Ontario and its arts councillors, in league with the corporate culture barons, have devised a plan for the complete takeover of the arts.
Calgary
Authors: Portman Jamie
Published: June 2023

Less than two decades ago, the Canada Council was envisaging the creation of a chain of regional theatres in major urban centres from coast to coast. The concept at the time seemed audacious — even unattainable — but the Council considered it vital to the development of a healthy theatrical climate. And the vision was realized. But not even the Council could have envisaged the situation in Canada today, a situation which sees additional professional theatres in the various centres clamoring for financial assistance and, in most cases, deserving it.
London
Authors: Chubb Kenneth
Published: June 2023

Canadian director Kenneth Chubb has been living and working in England for several years now and recently founded one of London’s growing number of lunchtime theatre groups, The Wakefield Tricycle Company. When Chubb first heard last year that a festival of Canadian plays was to be offered in London by several representative Canadian companies he immediately offered his help in the organization of the project. But, Chubb argues, plans were made without real consultation in England and more changes were made then could possibly benefit the scheduled productions. The following background and commentary on the Festival from his perspective was written as a response to the comments made in CTR 1 by Ken Gass, artistic director of the Factory Theatre, about the failure of some of the work “to connect.”
An Actor’s Impressions: 1964-1980
Authors: Garebian Keith
Published: June 2023

Barry MacGregor began acting in 1946 — at the age of 10 — in his native England. His father had been an actor as had his grandparents before him. Between 1955 and 1957, he served in the army and when he was discharged he began doing television and live theatre on London’s West End. In 1961, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company and appeared at Canada’s Stratford Festival in 1964, 1966 and 1967. In 1970, he returned to Canada and has remained with the Stratford Festival ever since. In 1973, he began combining acting with administration at the Festival and he is now equally at home off-stage as he is on. His years at Stratford give him a unique perspective on the various regimes. The following interview with MacGregor was done this past summer by Montreal critic Keith Garebian.
A Chronology
Authors: Neil Boyd
Published: June 2023

What actually led to the Stratford Controversy? Could it have been avoided? How far back did its roots go? The following chronology was prepared for CTR by writer Boyd Neil.
Pinching Hirsch’s Pennies
Authors: Alderman Tom
Published: June 2023

The Stratford Controversy has led to many things, not the least of which is some examples of good, old-fashioned satire. In an effort therefore to put this past year’s events into some more human context, we offer the following “interview” with Marlee Harris who allegedly is going to be calling all the budget shots for 1981. The interview was originally done by free-lance writer Tom Alderman for CBC-Radio.
An Introduction: Viewpoints on the Stratford Controversy
Authors: Rubin Don
Published: June 2023

In 1973, the Stratford Festival named Robin Phillips as its new artistic director. In the months following the announcement, a small number of voices were raised — CTR‘s among them — suggesting that the Festival, Canada’s largest and most prestigious theatre, should not be run by someone without Canadian experience. At the time, many ridiculed those voices arguing that “art is international” and suggesting that such radical sentiments belonged more appropriately to the lunatic fringe.
Neville’s Neptune
Authors: Knowles Sackville Richard Paul
Published: June 2023

John Neville, the Artistic Director of Halifax’s Neptune Theatre, has undoubtedly found the formula for commercial success, and has rescued the theatre from its financial problems. But how has he done this, and at what cost?
Speaking Shakespeare: A Computerized Approach
Authors: Green Joseph G.
Published: June 2023

The following article is taken from a much longer work in progress, Shakespeare and the Language of Performance, which deals with ten interlocking approaches to the detailed analyses of Shakespeare’s texts for the stage.
Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon: A Catalogue-Index to Productions of the Shakespeare Memorial/Royal Shakespeare Theatre, 1879-1978.
Authors: Berry Ralph
Published: June 2023

What parts has Brian Bedford played at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre? Answer: Ariel and Arviragus. And Maggie Smith? None. When did Christopher Plummer play there? 1961. On such questions, Michael Mullin’s catalogue-index is an archive in itself. Formally, the book is a key to an archive, the records at the Shakespeare Centre Library at Stratford-upon-Avon, and their microfilm equivalents deposited at the University of Illinois. The catalogue “lists each production by play title, supplying the date of the first performance, the playwright, the director, the lighting designer, actors and roles, and a list of reviews and (when known) the reviewers. Next, separate indexes for playwrights, for theatre personnel, and for reviewers cross-reference the catalogue. At the end of the book the calendar lists productions year-by-year.” It is a remarkable reference tool, directing the user towards the production records of the most important Shakespearean theatre in the world. There is however a certain ambivalence in this catalogue-index, for it serves both as an aid to research and as a work of reference in itself. The difficulties of the project have not been altogether satisfactorily resolved.
Nerve in A Cautious Country
Authors: Friedlander Mira
Published: June 2023

Evaluating Onstage ‘81, the first international Toronto Theatre Festival, is a little like performing an autopsy on a still breathing infant. The danger of snuffing out a delicate and potentially significant bit of life is very real and to do so would be wrong indeed. TTF (as the child has become affectionately known) suffered a long and difficult birth, beset by doubts, near abortions, and an exceptionally long labour period. Its first flowering, on the surface at least, seems to have been a lively and vibrant one. But as everyone knows, infants — no matter how active — are delicate creatures and must be nurtured with great devotion and support if they are to reach adulthood. On the other hand, children also require the presence of creative and stable adults who can mold them with firm and loving care.
Yellowknife’s Globe Theatre
Authors: Souchotte Sandra
Published: June 2023

The deep freeze of a northern winter had already caught Yellowknife, the capital city of the Northwest Territories, in a frigid bear hug last November when residents were astonished to learn that they might be getting a performing arts theatre with the help of … the Globe and Mail.
Third World Festival Report
Authors: Carnal Tish
Published: June 2023

The fifth Third World Theatre Festival and Colloquy, held in Seoul, Korea this past Spring, was hosted by the Korean Centre of the International Theatre Institute and was attended by 170 delegates and performers from 26 countries, representing four continents. Nine troupes from eight countries performed including groups from Bangladesh, France, India, Indonesia, Japan, Tunisia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Thailand gave a workshop. In addition to the nine foreign companies, more than 20 Korean troupes performed a wide array of traditional and modern theatre which included performances of puppet theatre, shaman ritual and masked dance.
Artists Not Craftspeople
Authors: Benson Susan
Published: June 2023

Designer Susan Benson has worked at theatres all across Canada doing both sets and costumes. Most recently, she was appointed Head of Design at the Stratford Festival, a position that puts her in charge of design work at both the Festival Stage and the proscenium A von Theatre. What is her view of design in the theatre generally and the Canadian theatre in particular? The following interview with Ms. Benson was conducted for CTR by Brian Arnott.
Stage Costume Technique
Authors: Emery Joy Spanabel , Curtis Ann
Published: June 2023

Joy Spanabel Emery has given us a textbook packed with technical knowledge on “preparing costumes and getting them on stage on time.” As a teacher and designer, I welcome her fund of experience. Ms. Emery’s advice is well-tried, and it ranges over all aspects of the costumer’s craft from sketch to first night, and beyond. Workroom organization and equipment, pattern drafting, choice of fabrics, costume construction and fitting, dyeing, basic millinery and prop-making, and (very important) budgeting and the charts and lists that help to plan the smoothrunning work schedule. All this and more is discussed in soundly practical terms. As the author puts it at one point, “It is very frustrating to have to stop construction in order to buy needles for the sewing machine because the supply has run out.” She speaks later about how necessary it is for “a costumer . .. to get along with people .. . a sense of humour makes the job easier.”
Upfront
Authors: Rubin Don
Published: June 2023

Film producer Garth Drabinsky has been trying for years to gain control of the Winter Garden Theatre complex, a 69-year old multi-space facility on Yonge Street in downtown Toronto. Drabinsky - working with W.B.C. Productions (which owns both the Bass ticket agency and Concert Productions International) told the Province and Famous Players (which actually owns the facility) that if given control, they would convert the main floor into a 1,600 seat movie/legitimate theatre and the long-dark secon d-floor Winter Garden vaudeville house into a 900-seat playho use chiefly for the transfer of Canadian productions.
Louisville: The Canadian Experience
Authors: Brennan Brian
Published: June 2023

Among the visitors to Jon Jory’s Festival of New American Plays at the Actor’s Theatre in Louisville, Kentucky, this spring, were Doug Riske, ARTICLEistic director of Calgary’s Alberta Theatre Projects, and Frank Moher, literary manager of Edmonton’s Northern Light Theatre.
Theatre Training: Visions and Revisions
Authors: Rubin Don
Published: June 2023

Everyone in the theatre knows something about training. We know so much, in fact, that training programs at most schools are slowly becoming indistinguishable one from the other except in terms of intensity. PARTICLEly as a result of this, most of our theatres later on—the professional homes of theatre students — wind up looking pretty much the same, filled with the same kind of directors using the same kind of actors doing the same kind of plays.
With Freedom in Their Eye … .
Authors: Peterson Leonard
Published: June 2023

Editor’s Note: The following memoir of Andrew Allan and Esse Ljungh was adapted by the author from an address given to the annual conference of the Association for the Study of Canadian Radio and Television / Association pour les Études sur la Radio-television canadienne (ASCRT / AERTC) in Toronto on May 8, 1982 titled “The Canadian Broadcasting Heritage: The Last Fifty Years and the Next Fifty.” Extracts from the Preface to the recently published full-length stage version of They’re All Afraid by Leonard Peterson are included with the permission of The Book Society of Canada Ltd., Agincourt, Ontario. © Copyright 1982 by Leonard Peterson.
Burlap Bags
Authors: Peterson Leonard
Published: June 2023

Burlap Bags was first broadcast by the CBC on February 3, 1946 as Item 17 in its Stage 46 series. It was produced by Andrew Allan with an original musical score composed by Lucio Agostini. John Drainie played the title role of Tannahill. Since then it has been rebroadcast on radio numerous times and has been adapted for both the stage and television by its author. When it was rebroadcast on March 20, 1949 as part of the Stage 49 series, Andrew Allan introduced Burlap Bags by commenting that it “… probably aroused more arguments than any other play we have done on the Stages. A lot of people went around saying it was the best thing they had ever heard – and a lot of others were quite willing to shoot them for thinking so and us for doing it. Personally, I thought at the time it was an outstanding piece of original radio writing.” Andrew Allan’s thoughts still apply. Almost forty years after it was written, Burlap Bags remains a relevant example of radio drama at its challenging best.
The Terrible Journey of Frederick Dunglass
Authors: Cook Michael
Published: June 2023

The Terrible Journey of Frederick Dunglass came into being as a direct result of the CBC’s Radio Drama Workshop, held in the Spring of 1981 in Toronto, with follow-ups in various regions in December of that year. Writing, like any other profession can become habit-forming, and despite the fact that I had been writing radio plays for many years I discovered that I had become a little too set in my ways. Exposure to writers, producers, technicians and Richard Imison, head of the Script Department of the BBC, acted upon me like an overdue mental spring cleaning. The discovery of technical innovations opened up a new world of sound. Sitting in my little house on Random Island at five o’clock one morning, looking down over the water, it all came together. I have been waging war for years on creatures attacking my garden, and had just finished a stint of teaching first year university English. Further autobiographical comparisons may be made only at risk. Dunglass was a pure joy to write. I pray that it reads well. Above all, though, it should be heard.
Peter Weiss: A Biographical Tribute
Authors: Trilling Ossia
Published: June 2023

Ask almost anybody today what they know of the dramatist Peter Weiss, and the answer is likely to be: ‘isn’t that the guy who wrote that strange play with – how many words was it, in the title? 25 or something?’ They’d be almost right, though when his best-known stage-play with that provocatively long title was first performed on the large stage of the west Berlin Schiller Theatre in 1964, nobody, not even Peter Weiss himself, could have known that even that record would be beaten three years later with his anti-imperialist drama about the American involvement in the Viet Nam war, which rated 45 words in the title (against 21 and 42 respectively in the German versions).
Thimblerig
Authors: Silver Alfred , Runnells Rory
Published: June 2023

It isn’t an injustice to Thimblerig and its talented creator, Alfred Silver, to speak of its symbolic importance as a published work and, before that, as a theatrical event at the Manitoba Theatre Centre, if only because given the theatrical history of Winnipeg, this fine play represents a hope for the future as well as a reminder of the past.
Theatre and Alchemy
Authors: Knapp Bettina L. , Houston Gary
Published: June 2023

Bettina L. Knapp’s special study is of the type intellectual historians expect to come from such earlier, more-inclusive works as Sir James Frazier’s The Golden Bough or Robert Graves’ The White Goddess. One imagines you’ll more likely find it in the occult, rather than the drama, bookstores; for Prof. Knapp has thrown far her research net and hauled in histories of alchemy, of philosophies and religions, plus thumbnail sketches of her exemplary playwrights , perspectives on alchemy by C.G. Jung and Antonin Artaud (subject of an earlier Knapp book), and considerations of symbolic schemata and myth and metallurgy.
Responding to the Region: Co-operative Theatre on Mulgrave Road
Authors: Knowles Richard Paul
Published: June 2023

Nova Scotia’s Mulgrave Road Co-op Theatre Company was founded in the fall of 1977 by Robbie O’Neill, Gay Hauser, Wendall Smith and Michael Fahey who researched, mounted, and toured the original Mulgrave Road Show, a collective arrangement of music and theatre based on the culture of Guysborough County, Nova Scotia. Since that time they have extended and deepened their exploration of the culture of northeastern Nova Scotia in such critical and popular successes as Let’s Play Fish, a probing of the 1971 Nova Scotia fishermen’s strike; playwright Chris Heide’s The Coady Co-op Show, about the founding and development of the co-op movement in Eastern Canada; One on the Way, an exploration of the lives and concerns of women in rural northeastern Nova Scotia; and Heide’s Bring Back Don Messer, a musical about cultural survival in the T.V. age. Focussing on their regional roots, they have established themselves as a force to be reckoned with in Canadian theatre.
Poland Theatre Under Martial Law
Authors: Szydlowski Roman
Published: June 2023

Note: Despite the relaxation of martial law in Poland, theatre life there remains far from normal. Two of the country’s major artistic directors – Adam Hanuszkiewicz of the National Theatre and Gustav Holoubek of the Dramatic Theatre – were removed recently from their positions. For a time it seemed that even Janusz Warminski – Artistic Director of the acclaimed Ateneum Theatre and world president of the International Theatre Institute – would lose his job as well. Only tremendous pressure from both the national and international theatre communities kept that from actually happening. As well, the prestigious theatre journal Dialog was suspended for several issues.
Toronto Theatre Today: An Introduction
Authors: Wallace Robert
Published: June 2023

In his opening remarks to a preview audience at Toronto’s refurbished St. Lawrence Centre last March, the city’s mayor, Arthur Eggleton, likened the renovated theatre to a shining jewel in the crown of Canadian theatre. The suggestion was more than unfortunate given that the overdecorated production of Tom Stoppard’s On the Razzle that followed was a tedious example of all that is wrong with Toronto theatre today and what, in fact, has contributed to its decline from Canadian pre-eminence. All the glitz and glitter of the theatre’s reopening could not disguise the bland and disjointed production on its stage. That Edward Gilbert, Artistic Director of the theatre’s resident company, chose to focus time and attention on a minor British farce at a time when Canadian plays are receiving increased international acclaim is a mistake in judgement that could be overlooked if the production was not so grandiose and pretentious. On the Razzle reportedly received one of the largest production budgets in the history of Toronto theatre; each of its five complete sets could have supported a full-scale production at any of the city’s smaller theatres; the cost of dressing its cast of more than 22 would pay the salary of at least one theatre administrator elsewhere. Such exorbitance might be understandable – if not acceptable – had the play spoken to or even entertained its audience. But when the invited house began to leave at the first intermission, it was evident that more than critical judgement was off: fiscal policies that support such a fiasco are terribly wrong.
Sharing Space: Ray Michal at City Stage
Authors: Wallace Robert
Published: June 2023

Michal: What I’m trying to do at City Stage is provide an exciting, involving theatre experience for downtown, urban audiences. I think of City Stage as a kind of community theatre for the downtown area. We have such a large residential area in the West End adjacent to our location just off Robson Street; I like to think of the theatre serving that community. Now, mind you, we get a lot of visitors, especially in the summer when the tourist traffic is pretty heavy, so the community is quite an eclectic one. But I find that my energy really comes from the immediate community that I work in, just walking down Robson Street and seeing the office workers that are in this part of the city every day. It’s really for those people that the theatre is here.
Jayce and the Kid: A Playwright’s Beginnings
Authors: Roberts Kevin
Published: June 2023

Canadian writers are convertibles. Lots of poets lower their hoods and turn into novelists, fiction writers wheel out books of poetry. There is a cultural climate here that accepts this literary swinging a lot more, I think, than in comparable countries, such as Australia, where poets and fiction writers mostly stay with their respective trades. The precedents are there, too, with drama. So I didn’t feel particularly unusual as a writer when the group of poems called S’ney’mos started to expand from the chorus of voices into a form more like a play.
Whither the Shaw Festival?
Authors: Friedlander Mira
Published: June 2023

When Christopher Newton arrived east in 1979 to take over the directorship of the Shaw Festival he knew only one thing for certain – he hadn’t come all the way from Vancouver to simply run another theatre – this one had to be special. Enter the company concept and the repertoire psychology, hitherto a stranger to the very proper and mostly dusty Festival. But building a company wasn’t all this determined director had in mind; he was convinced that here in the heart of Niagara’s vineyards a season of excitement and quality could be spawned, making the concept of summer festivals once more appealing and what’s more, economically viable.
What’s in a Name?
Authors: Ouzounian Richard
Published: June 2023

Note: Recently D. Michael Dobbin and Andis Celms have been named producers at Alberta Theatre Projects and the National Arts Centre, respectively. Mr. Ouzounian’s new position as producer at Toronto’s CentreStage Productions is not an isolated case in Canadian theatre.
The Manager’s Perspective: An Overview of Canadian Theatre Management
Authors: Barlow Curtis
Published: June 2023

The professional theatre in Canada has grown by leaps and bounds since such institutions as the Stratford Festival, the Manitoba Theatre Centre and Theatre du Nouveau Monde were first established in the late 40s and early 50s. The proliferation from five professional theatre companies 30 years ago to somewhere around 200 today has created many more training and employment opportunities for Canadian artists. Now it is generally accepted that an artist can experience a highly rewarding, if not lucrative, career in the professional theatre in this country.
Theatre Management in the U.S.
Authors: Stewart William
Published: June 2023

During the past 30 years, the United States has experienced a major shift in the organizational structure under which professional theatre is produced. Not-for-profit theatre companies have come into being and have spread from New York City across the country. While Broadway still produces with some commercial success, the permanent, institutional theatres in New York and throughout America have become increasingly important in the development of theatre art. Theatre Communications Group’s most recent survey, Theatre Facts 83, states that 189 responding non-profit professional theatres produced 2,616 productions for a total attendance of 13,670,027. This volume of activity also produced a collective financial deficit of $3 million.
Governing Bodies of British Theatres
Authors: Brydon M. Gillian
Published: June 2023

The governing body of every subsidized theatre is its board. – The Arts Council of Great Britain, Theatre Today, 1970

During the 15 years since the publication of the Arts Council of Great Britain’s report Theatre Today, the number of theatre companies subsidized by the Arts Council increased from 48 to 156.1 Generally speaking, today’s Arts Council clients are also governed by boards. This management structure, adopted from the profit-distributing/corporate sector, is advocated by the Arts Council.
Victoria: Bonds at the Bastion
Authors: Schroer Jan , Green Joseph
Published: June 2023

The Canadian theatre community will do well to take note of Bastion Theatre Company’s January 17, 1984, entry into the financial bond market. If that entry is successful, Bastion stands to improve its financial footing significantly and to point the way for other theatres in Canada; if not, another potential route toward fiscal stability in the arts may be closed.
Responsibility and Leadership in Canadian Theatre
Authors: Green Joseph , Buck Douglas
Published: June 2023

"The responsibility for CentreStage continuity does not rest with the artistic director or producer or general manager, who are loyal to themselves and, perhaps, to the profession but not to the theatre that employs them;" commented one member of its board of directors who, naturally, requests anonymity; "it rests with the board and its members who stay on to pick up the pieces, crisis after crisis."
Staying Alive
Authors: Zimmerman Cynthia
Published: June 2023

As its name suggests, Kaleidoscope is committed to myth, fantasy and magical transformation, to stimulating and enriching the creative imagination. “In all of us,” says artistic director Elizabeth Gorrie, “there is a joyous, curious and imaginative vitality which has been sublimated and sometimes erased as we strive toward maturity. But maturity need not remove this ‘childlike’ vitality. … We know that the child can cope with Imaginative abstracts more easily than adults and we see the child’s need to share in the gamut of human emotions. Therefore, in planning arts programs for young people, we must ask the questions: How can we best stimulate and free the imagination and emotions? How can we activate that creative instinct?” It is the search for the answers to these questions that lies at the heart of Kaleidoscope’s creative endeavours.
Rome: The PLS Plays a 6th-Century Church
Authors: Pearl Kathy
Published: June 2023

The day before Good Friday, 1984, a bedraggled group of 14 actors and three technical crew from Toronto entered Rome’s international airport. They were in Rome at the holiest time of year to perform a late-medieval English passion play in a 1,400-year-old church.
Edmonton, The International Fallacy at the House that Shoctor Built
Authors: Minsos Susan
Published: June 2023

The Edmonton Citadel Theatre opened its 84/85 winter season with The Country Holiday written by the Italian Carlo Goldoni (1707–1793), in an English version translated by Gordon McDougall and Barry Russell. Although amusing exchanges were scattered throughout, the trilogy stretched far beyond a bearable length. Because stagehands and actors scurried about between scenes frantically flapping material over sofas and adjusting giant blinds, The Country Holiday often grew simply tedious. The cold pseudo-marble sets created a distance between actors and audience, the actors appearing harshly illuminated by a purplish glow as though their homes were lit by fluorescent street lights. In The Edmonton Journal Jamie Portman called the production “flavorless.” The production plodded rather than danced its way through Goldoni’s comedy.
Western Adventures of Two Theatrical Dudes, Out of Place
Authors: Wallace Robert
Published: June 2023

To present interviews with James Roy and Guy Sprung in an issue on Prairie theatre might indeed seem “out of place.” Although Roy is currently the artistic director of the Manitoba Theatre Centre, he is better known for his previous appointments as the artistic director of Ontario’s Blyth Summer Festival, which he founded in 1975, and the artistic director of Victoria’s Belfry Theatre, a position that he held from 1980 until his move to Winnipeg last April. And Guy Sprung? What’s the artistic director of the Toronto Free Theatre doing in an issue on the Prairies? And why is he paired with James Roy?
A Voice from the Badlands, Writing Big
Authors: Manguel Alberto
Published: June 2023

Paul Gross is an intuitive playwright. His plays are not the result of a dramatic theory consciously applied to writing, or of a deliberate acceptance (or rejection) of any given literary movement. As a playwright, Gross does not feel particularly western Canadian, or even Canadian, in spite of the Badlands landscape which his creatures roam. “I have to short-circuit my consciousness to write: I don’t know, I mustn’t know, what I’ve written while I’m writing. Only afterwards do I turn my head into a microprocessor and figure out what horrid things have happened in the play.”
Report from the High Wire / 1, Networking the Decade
Authors: Albert Lyle Victor
Published: June 2023

Edmonton’s Theatre Network walks the high wire without a net. While most theatres build into their season at least one show that they are reasonably sure will sell, if only by familiarity alone, Theatre Network has none. Their year is made up of all new, all Canadian, all Albertan work. A daring idea, but the inevitable question is, will it work? So far Theatre Network has not lost its balance.
British Columbia: The Foreign Legion of Canadian Theatre
Authors: Weihs Ronald
Published: June 2023

“The Caravan Stage Company, North America’s only horse-drawn theatre, offers hard work, low pay, good food and a place to sleep under a wagon. If you’re still Interested, leave your name and number at the sound of the beep.”
British Columbia: Two Steps Backward from the One Step Forward
Authors: Wachtel Eleanor
Published: June 2023

In many ways, Canadian theatre has been loathe to “express the recognition that [women] are participants in the world” either on the stage or, more particularly, off. In Vancouver, there are a number of women working as directors, a couple of playwrights, and a pool of strong actresses; (I will betray the usual myopia toward women set and lighting designers, administrators, and so on). But there is no feminist theatre per se. And women are marginalized in what theatre there is. Both these facts are surprising given the prominent role that women have played in the development of local theatre, and further, the potential of theatre as a feminist medium.
Feminist Performance: On the Cutting Edge
Authors: Friedlander Mira
Published: June 2023

Radicalism is endemic to any discussion of women in the theatre. In what is traditionally a male-dominated art form (every major theatre in Toronto has a male artistic director at its helm), the contribution of women remains relegated to lesser roles, except on the stage where sexism must take second place to the demands of the author’s creation. It comes as no surprise, then, that many women eager for expression and the emotional fulfillment which comes from shaping a work in its totality, have departed the mainstream to strike out solo or to form new companies. It also follows that these same pioneers, fed up with artistic structures that simply emulate or propagate male values, would explore the development of new forms. The attitudes guiding and molding their work are more than a simple rejection of male-dominated culture; they express the burgeoning political consciousness which oppression of any kind often engenders. Not only are many of these artists battling a socially, politically, and economically repressive mainstream, they are also, in many cases, creating a groundswell of new evaluative criteria. Consequently, they are a most positive force. Others not as committed to overtly political art are toiling with questions of performance structure, leading the way for those seeking new forms in which to express radical content.
The Canadian Mandate / 2: Hanging Tough
Authors: DeFelice James
Published: June 2023

Edmonton’s Workshop West Theatre has managed to survive and grow during seven seasons while maintaining its strong mandate of producing and developing Canadian plays and playwrights. But it’s getting tough. Founded in 1978 by Gerry Potter, who has remained the artistic director since then, Workshop West Theatre has produced 32 plays by Canadians as well as numerous seed shows and workshops. Included in this number are 11 plays given their first productions by the theatre.
Pour suivre le théâtre au Québec: les ressources documentaires
Authors: Lavoie Pierre , Wagner Anton
Published: June 2023

Pierre Lavoie’s Pour suivre le théâtre au Québec: les ressources documentaires is both an extremely useful and timely publication. Lavoie’s annotated bibliography of print and audiovisual sources pertaining to theatre production and dramatic writing in Quebec will not only further stimulate the already impressive ongoing theatre history research within that province; it will also greatly facilitate research on Québécois theatre and drama in English Canada and thus contribute to the dialogue now beginning between our two main theatrical cultures.
The Stratford Festival / 1: The Habit of Vanity
Authors: Conlogue Ray
Published: June 2023

The forest or green world, then, is a symbol of natural society, the word natural here referring to the original human society which is the proper home of man, not the physical world he now lives in but the “golden world” he is trying to regain.—Northrop Frye, A Natural Perspective: The Development of Shakespearean Comedy and Romance
Summer Festivals in Atlantic Canada: Balancing Love and Money
Authors: Brunner Astrid
Published: June 2023

It can be argued that a festival of only one company cannot be viewed as a festival. On the other hand, the most prevalent definition of a festival is that it is an event offering a variety of productions put together by concentrated effort. Obviously this may be accomplished by one company as well as by many.
Down and Out in the Can Lit Ghetto
Authors: Wade Bryan
Published: June 2023

Okay, I want you to know right off the top that the most sophisticated research methodology was used in this survey of 39 English-speaking Canadian universities across the country. No, there was no Apple available. Or IBM. Or floppy disks. I didn’t conduct on-the-street interviews, or send out mail-in questionnaires. I don’t even know what my data base is, let alone what it should be. Then what did I use? My hands. This is what’s called the “hands-on” survey method, where you go to a place (in this case a library) and sit down and go through university calendars one by one, flipping the pages by hand. Just like the old days.
The Theatre of Confluence II
Authors: Schafer R. Murray
Published: June 2023

1 / What is the purpose of art? First, exaltation. Let us speak of that. The change that occurs when we are lifted out of the tight little cages of our daily realities. To be hurled beyond our limits into the cosmos of magnificent forces, to fly into the beams of these forces and, if we blink, to have our eyes and ears and senses tripped open against the mind’s will to the sensational and the miraculous. To feel these forces explode in our faces, against our bodies, breaking all encrustations and releasing us with a wild fluttering of freedom. Let us first speak of that. Of the newness that stuns the mind and sends it reeling. Let us speak of that. How everything becomes new. And if we return to our daily routines, they are no longer routines, but scintillate and have become magnificent by our sensing them with fresh eyes and noses and minds and bodies. Let us speak of this exaltation which has driven us out of ourselves to experience the life we have missed or only vaguely sensed, even resisted.
The Dream in High Park
Authors: Smith Brian
Published: June 2023

A few evenings before the closing of Toronto Free Theatre’s 1985 Romeo and Juliet in Toronto’s High Park, a pre-show spectator was heard to remark without the least disgruntlement: “Would you believe, Brenda, I’m sitting here in the midst of two thousand people and a bird splats on my shoulder? Now what are the chances of that?” In Toronto, and elsewhere in Canada, the chances are good that such an invasion of art by nature can occur with unsolicited frequency. Following in the tradition of other outdoor Shakespeare festivals such as Regent’s Park Theatre in London and Joseph Papp’s Shakespeare in the Park in New York, Toronto Free’s Dream in High Park has become, after three successive seasons, a prominent feature of Toronto’s summer cultural life. For Guy Sprung, artistic director of Toronto Free Theatre, the splat of the seagull is more than an amusing instance of the interface of art and nature that occurs in the outdoor setting. It is a reminder of the TFT mandate to put the bowels back in Shakespeare, strip him of elitist preciosity and serve him up rough but ready; TFT’s Dream in High Park represents an enthusiastic return to the roots of theatre - performance outdoors, with a broad, popular appeal.
The Theatre of the Oppressed / 2: To Dynamize the Audience
Authors: Enright Robert
Published: June 2023

The following is an edited transcript of an interview originally broadcast on the CBC Radio programme Stereo Morning In May 1985. It was conducted when Augusto Boal and his company were visiting Montreal to present a lecture and demonstration of Theatre of the Oppressed as part of the first Festival de théâtre des Amériques at that time. CTR thanks Anne Gibson, former executive producer of Stereo Morning, for access to the interview.
Montreal La Soirée des Murmures
Authors: Lushington Kate
Published: June 2023

March 1986, at the Quatrième festival de créations des femmes produced by Le Théâtre expérimental des femmes, Montreal. An evening of murmurings; an exploration of the rapport between voyeurism and exhibitionism; action painting, enactment, repetition, performance, unlooked-for juxtaposition.
Edmonton Alive, Well, and in French
Authors: Bosley Vivien
Published: June 2023

Among the telegrams of congratulation Pierre Bokor received on the 15th anniversary of the Théâtre français d’Edmonton last year was one from Europe which said - perhaps condescendingly – “Un théâtre français à Edmonton - quelle merveille!” The writer would perhaps be astonished to know that Edmonton now has not one but two permanent French theatres. Perhaps that constitutes a kind of miracle which needs explaining.
Prince Edward Island / 2: The Charlottetown Alternatives
Authors: Allen Deb , Mair Elizabeth , Knowles Richard Paul
Published: June 2023

Existing in a city with a population of less than 35,000, and living in the overwhelming shadow of the Confederation Centre and its Charlottetown Festival, alternative theatre in the capital of PEI operates precariously close to the edge. But there is an alternative theatre movement in the city, one that centres on the activities of two groups, Theatre Bandwagon and an associated company, Theatre After All.
St. John The Bi-Capitol Project
Authors: Blagrave Mark
Published: June 2023

Since the St. John’s Opera House closed in the late 1930s, New Brunswick’s largest city has been without a dedicated commercial venue for legitimate live theatre. In spite of a lively theatrical past as a touring “destination” in the 19th and early 20th centuries and as the scene of a flourishing amateur theatre in the middle decade of this century, the 60s saw a single high school auditorium as the sole venue for performing arts presentations in St. John. Large-scale local productions were mounted there, and any touring attraction played there.
An Introduction
Authors: Knowles Richard Paul
Published: June 2023

“Atlantic Alternatives.“ It’s a slippery phrase. Not only is “Atlantic Canada” a purely bureaucratic construct, as Diane Bessai points out, but the concept of “alternative theatre“ has Itself come increasingly under fire In recent years: alternative to what?
Canadian Dramaturgy: 1 They Also Serve Who Only Stand and Wait For Rewrites …
Authors: Kareda Urjo
Published: June 2023

Hardly anyone understands what could possibly be meant by “dramaturgy” and that’s probably one of its strengths. It inhabits a theatrical gray area which can be illuminated in different ways according to the needs of each particular theatre and the skills of each individual dramaturg. For the purpose of this article, one can, by wanton over-simplification, isolate two broad areas of concern, each of which might be described as dramaturgy. What is so fascinating is how wildly opposed from each other the two must seem.
Rhubarb! / 1: Inside the Rhubarb! Festival
Authors: Gilbert Sky
Published: June 2023

You won’t mind if I just start out with a definition of theatre, will you? I think it’s best that we define our terms, and after all, how long has it been since anyone asked me, a faggot, to write any sort of article about theatre? So forgive me if I’m a bit old fashioned and want to start way back at the beginning like in Philosophy 101.
An Historical Perspective
Authors: Stuart Ross
Published: June 2023

The world-wide tendency today is to ignore or denigrate the past. The lessons of history are considered inapplicable to modern problems; only the present and future matter. Yet the past and the present in the theatre are uniquely interrelated. The emotions experienced by a modern actor awaiting his entrance are similar to those of his predecessors. The theatre resists mechanization because it requires human contact. It takes as long to write, rehearse, and perform a play today as it did one hundred years ago and involves as many people. Even some of the same problems continue. Too many theatre buildings are inadequate, there is still a shortage of good plays, our repertoire remains dominated by English and American works, and the business of theatre is as precarious as ever. This strong connection should make theatre people particularly responsive to history.
Herman Voaden and the Symphonic Theatre
Authors: Evans Chad
Published: June 2023

The Brock Bibliography (1972) lists almost 900 English Canadian stage plays published between 1900 and 1972, yet there are at least another 900 plays which were produced but not published. Included in this latter category are the plays of Toronto’s Herman Voaden, a playwright whose major work was done in the 20’s and 30’s, and whose presence on the Canadian scene was a significant part of the nationalism of that era.
Western Nationalism
Authors: Melnyk George
Published: June 2023

It seems to me that the main bulwark supporting Canada’s colonial mentality is the institution of the “regional theatre” and its mandate to provide general theatre to general audiences. In its worst form, this mandate takes on a mission of bringing culture to the poor benighted masses of the boondocks. This something-for-everyone institution is the spawning ground for a self-effacing internationalism and a skillful tokenism.