10. Donna Yamamoto

Donna Yamamoto was born in August 1962 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She is known for her illustrious acting career. She is known for her roles in Deadpool, 50/50, and Streetfighter: The Animated Series. Yamamoto also received the Vancouver Now Representation and Inclusion Award for displaying dedication and leadership to building inclusivity within the theatre industry in Vancouver. She has recently retired from being the Artistic Director of the Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre (vACT) after nine years. During her time there she produced the show Empire of the Son. While she was the Artistic Director of the vACT she was constantly pushing for more and better diversity within Theatre.  

9. Quincy Armorer

Quincy Armorer is an actor, director, instructor and admin. In his acting career he has been in the Stratford Festival, the National Arts Center, Centaur Theatre, Black Theatre Workshop, St. Lawrence Shakespeare Festival, Geordie Productions, Repercussion and many more. Armorer studied at the Concordia University (Montreal) where he studied in the Theatre Department, he also studied at the Birmingham Conservatory for Classical Theatre at the Stratford Festival. Then in the 2005-06 season, he was the Associate Artistic Director of Black Theatre Workshop, he was then named the Artistic Director in 2011. He is currently stepping down.

8. Djanet Sears

Djanet Sears is a Toronto-based playwright, director and actor. Sears was born in London, England 1959. She moved to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada at 15 with her family. She eventually settled in Oakville in 1975. Sears’ work Arika Solo (Factory Theatre, 1989) had won her national and international attention. The show was produced for CBC Radio in 1990, and it was published by Sister Vision Press. Because of Afrika Solo, Sears was the first African-Canadian to get her play published. She is also the writer of Harlem Duet, a play commonly referenced as Othello’s prelude. It follows the story of Othello and his first wife, Billie, through the lives of three different couples all living during a significant time in the Balck American Experience. Harlem Duet which Sears wrote and directed won her multiple Dora awards in 1997 such as Best Play Play and Best Directing. Sears is continuously trying to push for more opportunities for Black creatives and artists. Djanet Sears is also a founding member of Obsidian Theatre.

7. Ravi Jain

Ravi Jain is also a Toronto-based playwright, actor and director.  Jain went to Upper Canada College and studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, New York Tisch School of the Arts, and the Jacques Lecoq school in Paris. He is the founding member and Artistic Director of Why Not Theatre. He has directed a production of Salt-Water Moon at Factory Theatre in 2016, which awarded him a Dora Mavor Moore Award for direction. In the same year, he directed a production of Lisa Codringtons’s adaptation of Bernard Shaw’s story, The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God for the Shaw Festival. He has written a few of his plays own, such as A Brimful of Asha, which is a play he wrote with his mother, who is named Asha, based on real events from Jain’s life. It was remounted in 2013 after critical acclaim, it ended up touring in Canada and abroad. He was shortlisted twice for the Siminovitch Prize in 2016 and 2019, he has won the Pauline McGibbon Award for Emerging Director (2012), and also won the Canada Council John Hirsch Prize for Direction in 2016.

6. Mike Payette

Mike Payette is an actor and a director. He is from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. His work has been performed in theatres like the Citadel Theatre, Manitoba Theatre for Young People, Vertigo Theatre, Banff Centre, The Grand Theatre, Factory Theatre, Neptune Theatre and the National Arts Center. He has directed many plays including; Harlem Duet, A Line in the Sand and Another Home Invasion, Hosanna and Choir Boy, Around the World in 80 Days. Payette has won the Montreal English Theatre Award (META) twice. Mike Payette has been an Artistic Director for many theatre companies including Tableau D’Hôte Theatre, which he also co-founded. He was the Artistic and Executive Director of Geordie Productions, which is one of Canada’s leading theatres for young audiences companies. He was also the Assistant Artistic Director for Black Theatre Workshop where he directed Harlem Duet. Currently, Payette is the Artistic Director of Tarragon Theatre.

5.  Weyni Mengesha

Mengesha is a phenomenal director for both theatre and film who is always pushing for more representation on stage and directs a lot of culturally specific shows. Weyni Mengesha grew up in Scarborough, Toronto, Canada. Mengesha is the Artistic Director for Soulpepper Theatre in Toronto and has a drive for fighting against racism within the theatre world. Her directing has won her many awards in New York (Drama League), Los Angeles (Drama Critics Circle), and has been nominated for the Outstanding Direction Dora Award five times, winning once. She has directed culturally specific plays such as Kim’s Convenience which focuses on the Asian-Canadian experience, and da Kink in my Hair, which tells the stories of Black women in Toronto both the joys and hardships of their lives. Both shows have toured nationally and internationally and also ended up becoming shows on CBC, Global and Netflix. Mengesha is also an instructor at the National Theatre School in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. In the past, Mengesha was the co-artistic director and teacher at The Artists Mentoring Youth Project for 7 years. In 2018, she was named one of the 50 most influential people in Toronto by Toronto Life Magazine.

4. Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu

Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu was raised in Kenya and Victorio, British Columbia, Canada. Otu is another Toronto-based director. She graduated from Soulpepper Academy, York University and the University of Toronto, and Obsidian Theatre’s Mentor/Apprenticeship Program. She currently is the Artistic Director of Obsidian Theatre, she was also the founder and Artistic Director of IFT Theatre, (It’s A Freedom Thing Theatre) which is an experimental theatre company. For her directing she has won many awards such as the Dora Award for Outstanding Direction for The Brothers Size, she received a Toronto Theatre Critics Award, Artistic Director’s Award for Soulpepper, Pauline McGibbon Award, a Mallory Gilbert Protege Award, a Harold Award, twice nominated for the John Hirsch Directing Awards. Some productions she had done for Soulpepper are; Oraltorio: A Theatrical Mixtape, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, The 27 Club, and Porgy and Bess. For other theatres she has directed; Motherland, Nightmare Dream, Dancing to A White Boy Song, Just me, and You and The Silence (IFT Theatre). She is also known for directing and Assistant Directing projects for the Stratford Festival, Canadian Stage, Obsidian Theatre, and Volcano Theatre. She, along with many others, is fighting for more opportunities for Black artists and creatives, stating in an interview with Now Toronto, “I want to see that it’s not just a seasonal thing, that it goes beyond tokenism – a real desire to engage continuously in the richness of who we are, even after it stops being convenient.” (Now Toronto 2021).

3. Philip Akin

Philip Akin is an actor and director born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1950. He and his family moved to Oshawa, Ontario, Canada when he was five. In 1975 he became the first graduate of Ryerson’s acting program. After a successful acting career, Akin began directing. He has been instrumental to the Black communities within the theatre industry in Canada. He is a founding member of Obsidian Theatre, a company that’s dedicated to work made by and for Black people. In 2012, he was awarded the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Direction of a Play/Musical for his production of Suzane-Lori Parks; Topdog/Underdog. He became the director of the Shaw Festival’s production of Trouble in Mind in 2020. Not only is he a phenomenal director, but he has also done so much to support Black artists, creating funds and scholarships. Helping out whenever he can. Akin has recently retired from being the Artistic Director of Obsidian Theatre. 

2. Soheil Parsa

Soheil Parsa was born in Iran, 1954. He studied theatre performance at the University of Tehran, Iran, he later arrived in Canada in 1984. He then completed his Bachelor of Arts in theatre studies at York University. Since the beginning of his directing career, Parsa has had a very successful and distinct directing style. He chooses to be simplistic with props, set, and costumes – keeping the focus on the actors and the story. He mixes elements of Iranian and Western styles in his productions. His adaptation of Macbeth was very innovative. He mixed the very well-known western play with the context of ta’ziyeh, which is a style of Iranian theatre. Another interesting twist was that there was no blood and no swords, each character had a coloured scarf and when a character died their scarf was taken away. This change in approach to such a well-known piece as Macbeth was a slight risk, but with Parsa’s skill and passion it worked out extremely well. Parsa has diversified what audiences see as he has introduced a lot of Iranian plays to Canadian audiences. He is a six-time Dora Award Winner, four for Outstanding Direction and two for Outstanding New Play with co-translator/adaptor Peter Farbridge. His company, Modern Times, has received forty Dora Awards nominations and sixteen awards under Parsa’s direction. 

1. Nina Lee Aquino

Nina Lee Aquino is a Filipina-Canadian playwright, dramaturg, actor and director. Aquino was the founding member and Artistic Director of the fu-GEN Asian-Canadian Theatre Company from 2002 to 2009, which is a company, according to their Who We Are page, dedicated to developing “professional Asian Canadian theatre artists through the production of new and established works.” (fu-GEN Theatre. n.d). Later on, she became the Artistic Director of Cahoots Theatre Projects from 2009 to 2012. In 2010, she organized the first conference with and for Asian-Canadian theatre professionals. Nina is committed to creating a more diverse theatre community within Canada. She has recently been appointed the Artistic Director of the National Arts Centre English Theatre in Ottawa. She has received many awards for directing such as; the Ken McDougall Award for directing (2004), the Canada Council John Hirsch Prize (2008), and awarded three Dora Mavor Moore Awards for Outstanding Direction, for a paper series by David Yee (2011). Nina has played an integral part in shifting representation in Toronto theatre to be more diverse and multicultural and plans to continue to do so in her new role at the National Arts Centre English Theatre.

That concludes the list of the 10 best Canadian theatre directors of colour. People of colour have had to push past multiple barriers set against them, fight for their representation and shout for their voices to be heard. As more and more opportunities are being given to people of colour within the theatre industry, the more the theatre world will evolve and grow. Stories will be shared from multiple perspectives, new approaches and philosophies will be displayed, a richer and more diverse community will be leading the industry. I am sure with the work being put in now, the next few generations will have more Canadian theatre professionals that look like them, and more people to tell their stories.

sources

Fu-GEN Theatre. n.d. https://www.fu-gen.org/

Now Toronto. 2021. “Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu, artistic director of Obsidian Theatre.” Last modified February 4.
https://nowtoronto.com/news/mumbi-tindyebwa-otu-black-futures-month-2021

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The auditions for the fall musical run on the first Sunday after the first day of school. Your audition with about four to eight bars of music from a song from the musical. The sheet music and accompaniment are provided to you, the choice of song will determine what part you’re auditioning for (i.e male lead, female lead, ensemble). Throughout the week people will be called back for dance callbacks, and acting callbacks after school. By Friday, the cast list is posted. Rehearsals go from Monday to Thursday after school for about 2-3 hours, as well as weekly full-day Sunday rehearsals for approximately two to three months. It is a huge time commitment to bring the show to life, through the process, different crews are brought on such as the Props Crew, the Costume Crew, Hair and Makeup, Box office, Front of House, and many more. The cast and crew end up being around 150 people, the cast usually being around 50. The last Cawthra musical production was the teen edition of Chicago in September – November of 2019. Chicago is set in the roaring 1920s following Roxie Hart, an aspiring Vaudevillian star, when she murders her lover she gets arrested and thrown in the Cook County Jail. There she meets her role model and personal hero, Velma Kelly, and as they both get the same greedy lawyer, Billy Flynn, they are head to head to win the spotlight. Though instead of getting fame onstage, they seem to get the attention of the reporters. 

The four student-written one-act plays are picked from a  panel of 10 students, ranging from grades 9 to 12 and a teacher. The panel as a group chooses “the best” four one-act plays. Those four go on to be fully produced. Student-directed, student managed and student actors. Those four end up competing in an In-House competition where an adjudicator comes in and views all four shows in what is put on as the Cawthra Drama Festival or just Drama Fest. The adjudicator will then choose two to go on in the National Theatre School Festival. Cawthra tends to go to Provincials. all the student-written plays are usually due in October for the panel to choose the four plays and start rehearsals before the winter break. They would perform by the end of February and the beginning of March.  

The spring play kind of overlaps with the four student-written plays, though it is not impossible to do both. The spring play auditions happen pretty early on, in February, and they perform around the end of April and early May. The way it functions is very similar to the fall musical where there are callbacks throughout the week and then a final cast list posted at the end of the week. The cast is around 30-50 students while there is a large number of crew members. The total number of students also ends up in the three digits. This allows many students to get involved in Cawthra’s productions.  The most recent spring play shows were Our Town and Girls Like That both done in February – May of 2019. Our Town follows the daily life of a small village girl, Emily. She resides in Grover’s Corners and there she kindles a friendship with her neighbour George, and the play follows their relationship for about 12 years. Girls Like That follows a group of girls that have gone to an all-girls school from pre-school to graduation. When a naked photo of Scarlett is leaked to the internet rumours spread and her relationships with the girls she has grown up with begin to crumble. The play talks about gender equality and the effects of living in a digital generation. 

The great thing about these big productions is that during the shows, everything is run by the students. The Stage Management and Tech team, as well as the crew heads usually consist of senior students. This helps give the students more experience and opportunity to explore the aspect of theatre they enjoy. Cawthra’s productions are also open to all the students of Cawthra, not just those in the RAP program. This allows for students to meet those outside of their major, and make new friends all while taking part in something they all love.

Another opportunity Cawthra gives to their drama major students is that a lot of the projects done in the senior years (grades 11 and 12) are put on for an audience. For example, in grade 11 there is a final project called 12:30 Theatre, where students write, direct, act and manage a show about 20 – 30 minutes long and performances are done at 12:30 for other students to come to see. Similarly projects in grade 12 where students work on them during class and then they are put on for a larger audience such as the production of Love and Information. The final exam for grade 12s would be Play-In-A-Day where the grade 12 classes are tasked with creating a show within only a single school day, halfway through the day the teachers give them a curveball, such as getting the groups to insert a random grade 9 into their show. Each group of about 10 students are also given 10 of the same prop (e.g 10 hula hoops, 10 buckets etc.) and those props have to somehow be integral to their show. At the end of the day family and friends are invited into the auditorium to witness all four shows. The event is also an opportunity for students to work as Front of House and see what their final project would be. It is also a chance for the teachers to hand out awards to deserving students such as Excellence in the Classroom, TA (Teacher assistant) Award, Crew Boss – given to the student with the most crew hours, which are hours students receive when they work on a crew for a Cawthra production. There are a few awards for the seniors as well. This final project ends up being a celebration of the drama program and being able to participate in the wonderful shows any way you can, whether it’s cast or crew. It is a great and memorable way to send off the seniors.

With COVID-19 the shows have had to be put on pause. Though in the year 2021 Cawthra ended up creating a virtual musical of Matilda. Everything was done in isolation, from recording the songs, dances, and scenes to editing everything together. Main cast members were given green screens to put up behind them as they filmed, the greenscreens were passed around through the main cast as there were more actors than screens. There would be weekly google meets to learn the songs, dances and blocking for scenes, about three times a week. There were opportunities to have review days, send in your singing to get feedback before you send it officially, and a place to workshop scenes. It was a difficult and strange process, both staff and students were treading unknown waters – though through all the trial and tribulations came a very unique and creative production of Matilda. All the hard work and dedication for the show were definitely worth it. The show had a virtual opening night and was available for only 30 days after, this way friends and family were able to enjoy the amazing show.

In 2022, Cawthra is continuing to produce the four student-written plays. With the restrictions coming down and life slowly transitioning back to a version of “normal” Cawthra theatre is slowly building back up. As the Cawthra Theatre Festival is underway, the fall musical has been re-worked to follow a more showcase structure with a cast of 25 students, selected songs from the show Something Rotten will be performed. It has been renamed The Spring Spectacular. The Spring Event along with the Cawthra Theatre Festival each have tech teams who will stage-manage and run lights and sound. Each show in the Cawthra Theatre Festival has their own mini team, with a Stage Manager, an Assistant Stage Manager, lighting, and sound. Cawthra is currently rebuilding its tech team since the pandemic has stopped the natural process of the seniors teaching the younger crew members. Everyone is either relearning or learning for the first time how to run all the technology in the auditorium, and how to run a show. 

Amongst all the chaos there is a lot of hope for Cawthra theatre and its future shows. Hopefully, within the next school year shows will be fully running again, and things can go back to normal including six wonderful productions. Cawthra is already planning next year’s fall musical, the full version of Something Rotten, hopefully having a full-size cast and crew. Something Rotten is a comedic musical that centers around two brothers who set out to write the world’s best musical mashing up sixteenth century Shakespeare with modern Broadway. Since the pandemic theatre has been struggling to get back on its feet, high school theatre is no different. As more restrictions are being lifted and things are returning back to normal, theatre is slowly opening up again. As there are already new plans for the following school year, there is an initiative to rebuild Cawthra’s tech team by meeting during lunches to learn about how to control the lights and sound of the auditorium, and with the creative leads that usually direct and/or produce these productions I am sure that Cawthra will be able to come back stronger than ever before. 

If everyone is moving forward together, then success will take care of itself

Henry Ford

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#10 – John Hudson

Starting at number ten, there is John Hudson. John Hudson is the Artistic Directing and founder of Shadow Theatre in the city of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Hudson’s importance as a director has been introducing new contemporary American and Canadian plays to audiences in Edmonton. The company has been nominated for many Elizabeth Sterling Haynes Theatre Awards and has also won awards including; Outstanding New Play, Outstanding Performance in a Leading Role and Outstanding Set Design. Other award-winning productions that Hudson has directed are; A Picasso, The Unseen, Grace and Three Days of Rain.

#9 – Paul Thomson

Paul Thomson takes the place for number nine. In 1940, he was born in the city of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada. From 1965 to 1967, Thomson travelled to Frace to study and work in theatre, he then returned to Canada and immersed himself into a process called “collective creation” which, according to the Candian Theatre Encyclopedia, is a term used “to define the process by which a group of theatre artists work together create a play.” (Candian Theatre 2020). Developing this idea and technique of collective creation brought a whole other side and approach to theatre. Thompson is also known for having been the artistic director of Theatre Passe Muraille from 1972 to 1982. He has been noted, “for bringing the stories of ordinary Canadians to the stage, and for bringing theatre to rural communities and urban centres across the country.” (Canadian Theatre 2022)

#8 – Tyrone Guthrie

Tyrone Guthrie takes the spot for number eight. Sir William Tyrone Guthrie was born on July 2, 1900, and died on May 5, 1971. He was a British director who was important to the development of Canadian theatre. Guthrie is well known for helping to create the Shakespeare Festival Theatre in Stratford in Ontario in 1953, one of the biggest professional theatre companies in Canada, where he directed Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well and Richard III.  He was the artistic director for four seasons. The creation of the Shakespeare Festival Theatre helped shape Canadian Theatre. 

#7 – Bill Glassco

Bill Glassco has done so much for Canadian theatre throughout his life. He has been described as a big factor in the development of Canadian theatre and drama. In 1964 he left Canada to study acting and directing at the New York University, but he returned to Canada in 1969. He became involved in Ken Grass’s Factory Studio Lab. This is where he directed the premiere of David Freeman’s Creeps, which was the first play to cover stories about people with disabilities and dysfunctions, the play spotlights the silence and denial they face. This was a show done in Tarragon Theatre’s first season, which is a theatre company that Glassco and his wife found in 1971. Tarragon became very successful as part of Toronto’s alternative theatres. He was also the first director to direct Michel Tremblay’s Forever Yours, Marie-Lou outside of Quebec. This play, along with many other originally Quebec-written plays, would give him the achievement of creating an audience in English Canada for French Canadian plays.

#6 – Philip Akin

Next, there is Philip Akin. Akin has been instrumental to the Black communities within the theatre industry in Canada. Akin is an actor and director who was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1950. His family moved to Oshawa, Ontario when he was five. In 1975 he became the first graduate of Ryerson University’s acting program. After a successful acting career, Akin began directing. He is a founding member of Obsidian Theatre a company that’s dedicated to work made by and for Black people. In 2012, he was awarded the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Direction of a Play/Musical for his production of Suzane-Lori Parks; Topdog/Underdog. He became the director of the Shaw Festival’s production of Trouble in Mind in 2020. Not only is he a phenomenal director, but he has also done so much to support Black artists, creating funds and scholarships. Helping out whenever he can. Akin has recently retired from being the Artistic Director of Obsidian Theatre. 

#5 – Nina Lee Aquino

Next on the list is the one and only, Nina Lee Aquino. She, like many other directors on this list, is working towards creating a more diverse theatre community within Canada. She strives for better and broader representation, and in an interview with CBC Radio she states that she believes it’s “important the people that are in control of the narrative, that the people creating the narrative, the stories are also coming from all walks of life.” (CBC Radio 2022). She is a Filipina-Canadian credited as a playwright, director, dramaturg and actor. She is a Toronto-based director and was the founding member and artistic director of the fu-GEN Asian-Canadian Theatre Compay from 2002 to 2009. Later on, she became the Artistic Director of Cahoots Theatre Projects from 2009 to 2012. In 2010, she organized the first conference on Asian Canadian theatre. Nina is committed to developing new works “and to the artistic expression of interculturalism in theatre.” (Canadian Theatre 2022) She has recently been appointed the artistic director of the National Arts Centre English Theatre in Ottawa. She has received many awards for directing such as; Ken McDougall Award for directing (2004), the Canada Council John Hirsch Prize (2008), and awarded three Dora Mavor Moore Awards for Outstanding Direction, for paper series by David Yee (2011). Nina has played an integral part in shifting representation in Toronto theatre to be more diverse and multicultural and plans to continue to do so in her new role at the National Arts Centre English Theatre.

#4 – Soheil Parsa

In spot number four, Soheil Parsa takes the spotlight. Parsa was born in 1954 in Iran. He studied theatre performance at the University of Tehran, he later arrived in Canada in 1984. He then completed his Bachelor of Arts in theatre studies at York University. Since the beginning of his directing career, Parsa has had a very successful and distinct directing style. He chooses to be simplistic with props, set, and costumes – keeping the focus on the actors and the story. He mixes elements of Iranian theatre and Western styles. His adaptation of Macbeth was very creative and innovative. He mixed the western piece with the context of ta’ziyeh. There was no blood and no swords, each character had a coloured scarf and when a character died their scarf was taken away. This change in approach to such a known piece as Macbeth was a slight risk, but with Parsa’s skill and passion it worked out extremely well. Parsa has diversified what audiences see as he has introduced a lot of Iranian plays to Canadian audiences. He is a six-time Dora Award Winner, four for Outstanding Direction and two for Outstanding New Play with co-translator/adaptor Peter Farbridge. His company, Modern Times, has received forty Dora Awards nominations and sixteen awards under Parsa’s direction. 

#3 – Sky Gilbert

At number three, there is Sky Gilbert. He is and has been pushing the limits of theatre and has been giving many opportunities to many queer actors. Sky Gilbert is the co-founder and artistic director of Buddies in Bad Times which the largest gay and lesbian theatre in North America. He was the Artistic Director for about eighteen years. The company is dedicated to LGBT drama which is an opportunity for queer actors and creatives that they never really had before. The work that Gilbert creates surrounds the issues regarding gender and sexuality, which is something that isn’t talked about enough in theatre communities. As a director, Gilbert has received many awards such as three Dora Mavor Moore Awards for directing and the Pauline McGibbon Award for directing. Gilbert has not only directed his works but also directed plays such as The Lindros Trial, Treatment, How I, Wonder What You Are, and Anything Goes. Throughout Sky Gilbert’s career, he has pushed the boundaries of what theatre can and should be, actively creating safe spaces for queer communities and pushing for more queer representation within Canadian Theatre.

#2 – Andre Brassard

Andre Brassard has done so much for Canadian theatre, especially for Quebec. Brassard is continuously coined as being the “pioneer of Quebec theatre.” Before Brassard, all the theatre done in Quebec at the time was from France. The dialect spoken in France is different from the French dialect spoken in Quebec, which is called Joual. This difference could be compared to the English spoken in Canada versus the English spoken in Scotland or England. What Brassard did, was that he put on the first show that was fully spoken in Joual. The play was about three working-class women who work as stamp collectors, the way he directed this production was seen as almost revolutionary. He had directed the actors to talk the way they would if they were royalty. The lighting in the show did not follow realistic lighting, he had brought down the lights so that you could see them. This highlighted the characters and the language. The effect that this production had on Quebec was incredible, many people complained, but others took pride and joy from the fact that this play was all spoken in Joual. They felt that they could see themselves on the stage. He is also influential as he brought a lot more audiences to the theatre and a lot more theatre to established audiences.

#1 – Robert LePage

Last, but certainly not least is Robert Lepage. An absolute household name, if you ask any Canadian who they think is the best or most influential Canadian theatre director – Lepage is among the first names that are listed. He is known to juxtapose lots of multicultural elements in his plays as well as blending in new technologies to create a unique and outstanding style of theatre. One of his first works, The Dragons’ Trilogy expanded audiences’ horizons of what Quebec theatre could be, this was the first time a Quebec production toured abroad. In 1994, he founded a new theatre company; Ex Machina, most of the productions were written and directed by Lepage himself. It was a space that will allow for a structure capable of adapting to an organic approach to creating new work. When he first started in Canada he decided that he wanted to overcome the linguistic barriers that might be there as Canada is a bilingual country. In an article from The Guardian, it states his two main focuses on his approach became traditional storytelling and exceptional visuals, “freely micing a variety of media into dramatic stage images.” (The Guardian 2014). This approach changed the face of theatre and the limits to what can be pulled off on stage became almost limitless.

That concludes the top 10 most influential Canadian theatre directors of all time. The history of Canadian theatre has taken many turns and many people are responsible for shaping Canadian theatre into what it is today. From helping give pride to a whole province and language, to changing the belief of what can and cannot be staged, to taking direct action to push further the representation both on and off stage. These ten directors are not only extremely talented but have contributed so much to developing Canadian theatre into the industry is today. For more information, visit https://www.canadiantheatre.com/. 

SOURCES

Canadian Theatre. 2020. “Collective Creation.” Last modified November 7.

https://www.canadiantheatre.com/dict.pl?term=collective%20creation

Canadian Theatre. 2022. “Thompson, Paul.” Last modified January 28.

https://www.canadiantheatre.com/dict.pl?term=Thompson%2C%20Paul

Canadian Theatre. 2022. “Aquino, Nina Lee.” Last modified January 6.

http://www.canadiantheatre.com/dict.pl?term=Aquino%2C%20Nina%20Lee

CBC Radio. 2022. “Nina Lee Aquino wants to solve the world’s problems through theatre in new position.” Last modified January 7.

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-jan-7-2022-1.6307202/nina-lee-aquino-wants-to-solve-the-world-s-problems-through-theatre-in-new-position-1.6307669

The Guardian. 2014. “Robert Lepage: ‘My work is a therapeutic process.’” Last modified March 13.

https://amp.theguardian.com/culture/australia-culture-blog/2014/mar/13/robert-lepage-my-work-is-a-therapeutic-process

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Does anyone else miss theatre as much as I do? The shuffling over legs to get to my seat, the busy line-up at concessions, and the silence that swallows up the chatter of the audience just before the curtains draw open. Going to the theatre is an entire event! Though theatres have come to a halt for the time being, I know it will make its way back to center stage – and when it does, there will be these top theatre companies to explore outside of Toronto!

1. Shaw Festival

The Shaw Festival is located in beautiful Niagara-On-The-Lake, and is a huge attraction in Ontario. George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was an Irish dramatist and Nobel Prize winner, and sparked the inspiration of the Shaw Festival’s existence. Lawyer and playwright Brian Doherty produced Shaw’s Don Juan in Hell and Candida in Niagara-On-The-Lake, and the festival was created from there. Whether you are familiar with shows from the period when Shaw was alive or not, you’ll be sure to find a show in their season that peaks your interest! Alongside Shaw classics like Doctor’s Dilemma by Bernard Shaw, the Shaw Festival has produced an eclectic body of work over the years, including Brandon Jacobs Jenkins’ An Octoroon (2017), Serena Parmar’s The Orchard (After Chekhov) (2018), and Hannah Moscovitch’s The Russian Play.

2. Stratford Festival

The Stratford Festival is located in, you guessed it, Stratford Ontario! This is currently the largest classical repertory theatre company in North America. Their seasons primarily focus on Shakespeare, but they also put on a lot of contemporary plays. I went to the Stratford Festival for the first time last Fall, and I was in theatre heaven. I really enjoyed their production of Billy Elliot! I was blown away by the costume, set, acting, and of course the flashy choreography. I highly recommend seeing a performance at the Stratford Festival one summer. They have four different venues, and The Festival Theatre is my favourite one. It’s gorgeous! I would also recommend going during the Autumn time like I did. The weather is perfect and the trees near the theatre are tall and colourful at that time of year.

3. Big Time Murder Productions

Big Time Murder Productions focuses on Murder Mystery Theatre and has been around since 1992. Big Time has a location in Toronto, but their main office is located in Ottawa. Their reviews for Murder Mystery Ottawa are exceptional. Their shows involve audience participation, humour, an ensemble of experienced actors, and a good time! They even have interactive murder mysteries that people can choose from! They also have their own Zoom U-Dunnit mystery on their website that you can play with anyone online. I personally love a good murder mystery, and need to see this murder mystery in action.

4. Drayton Entertainment

Drayton Entertainment is a successful Canadian theatre company that is also not-for-profit. They have six venues across Ontario: The Drayton Festival Theatre in Drayton, Hamilton Family Theatre Cambridge in Cambridge, Huron Country Playhouse in Grand Bend, King’s Wharf Theatre in Penetanguishene, St. Jacobs Country Playhouse, and the Schoolhouse Theatre in St. Jacobs. They present a wide range of musicals, dramas, and comedies. Fun fact: their yearly attendance is over 250,000 patrons! According to their website, this actually makes them one of the largest professional theatre companies in the country. Drayton Entertainment first started in in 1991 in Drayton, Ontario, and has been doing very well ever since!

5. Grand Theatre

The Grand Theatre has been around since 1901, and is located in downtown London, Ontario. The Grand Theatre is a not-for-profit that currently has two stages: The Spriet Stage, and the McManus Stage. They have had renowned actors such as Louise Pitre, Carole Shelley, and William Hutt perform in their venue. They put on a diverse range of shows, including shows written/created by locals from their COMPASS program. They are proud to be located in London and that is the kind of energy that all theatres need. If you are in the area once the theatres open up again, take part in the Grand Theatre’s “Wednesday Speak Easy” event. You’ll get to meet cast members in a relaxed and inviting talk back after the show!

There you have it, the top 5 theatres outside of Toronto. It was hard to pick just 5, but I am glad there is so much thrilling theatre to explore in Ontario. Which Ontario theatre company is your favourite?

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Living in the GTA for almost six years now, I’ve been following this award show annually. But how did The Dora Awards come to be? Why is it called the Doras? Who exactly is Dora Mavor Moore? This is what I found out: Dora Mavor Moor is recognized as a Canadian Theatre Pioneer. She was an actor, teacher, director, producer, and one of the key founders of professional Canadian Theatre.

Dora Mavor was born in Glasgow, Scotland, on April 8^th, 1888. In 1894 her family moved to Toronto, Ontario when her father, James Mavor, was employed as a professor at the University of Toronto for political economy. After graduating from Havergal College for girls, she first studied elocution at Toronto’s Margaret Eaton School of Expression. She was accepted into London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and in 1912, she was the first Canadian to graduate. It is said that she was heavily influenced by seeing productions of W.B Yeats’ The Land of the Heart’s Desire, and Lady Augusta Gregory’s Spreading the News during her studies, as well as the establishment of the Irish National Theatre. These sparked in her ideas of what Canadian theatre should be.

In 1912 she made her first acting début with Ottawa’s Colonial Stock Company at the age of 24. She later joined New York’s Pastoral Players’ tour of Chautauqua in the United States where she would preform Shakespeare. Shortly after, in 1915, she married Francis Moore, an Angelical Army Chaplain. They lived in London during World War I and she became the first Canadian to perform at London’s Old Vic where she played the role of Viola in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. The couple had three sons together named Francis Wilfrid Mavor, James Mavor Moore, and Peter Mavor. Dora and James separated in 1928, and she moved with her three sons to Toronto, Ontario. From there, Dora began teaching acting and diction for the University of Toronto Extension Department, and even directed their plays. One notable show she directed is Shakespeare’s As You Like It, with music by Healey Willan and design by Arthur Lismer. She founded Hart House Touring Players to present Shakespeare shows for Ontario high schools with playwright and teacher Herman Voaden.

With the help of her sons, Dora bought a log home in 1938 which became a Barn Theatre. A new theatre company was formed titled The Village Players, who produced new Canadian plays. A notable play to come out of this endeavor is The House in the Quiet Glen by John Coulter, with actors Vernon Chapman and Don Harron. In 1946 she founded the New Play Society with her son Mavor Moore just before she turned 60, which was presented as a training company for performers, writers, and technicians.

The New Play Society premiered many short plays at the Royal Ontario Museum’s theatre with well known playwrights such as J.M. Synge’s Playboy of the Western World, Strindberg’s The Father, and Maugham’s Coventry Nativity Play and The Circle. The first play produced by the company was Lister Sinclair’s The Man in the Blue Moon in 1947. Other notable productions include Spring Thaw, Mavor Moore’s Who’s Who, and John Coulter’s Riel. It is also known that Dora was instrumental in recruiting actor Tyrone Guthrie to the Stratford Festival, who helped launch it.

Dora Mavor Moore worked hard for almost 40 years to further develop the Canadian theatre scene. Without her, I’m not quite sure where we would be. No wonder we named an award ceremony after her! If you would like to read more on Dora Mavor Moore there is a biographical book on her and her work. Click here to purchase it on Amazon.

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However, is immersive theatre truly the next step of the theatrical form? It presents many risks and challenges unique to the format – and it’s difficult to draw a line between works that are genuinely challenging, versus tourist trapping novelties. An example of the former is the play Torch, staged in St. Helen’s, Merseyside. Torch received rave reviews from The Guardian (Wyver 2019) because it delivers a strong social message that is universally resonant, yet born from a specific space and culture. St Helen’s is a town with high rates of domestic abuse, with the premise of Torch allowing for women to reclaim their own voices. The play explores boundaries in a way that parallels the lack of boundaries found in broken social spaces. The experience is haunting, evocative, and thought-provoking. It is also site-specific, specifically making use of the location it takes place in to draw from a rich cultural context that couldn’t be replicated anywhere else.

However, a key challenge of immersive theatre is ensuring it does not shift the burden of the performance onto the audience. Doing so upsets the balance that lends the way to a meaningful experience. Spectators inherently come to a theatre to spectate. To ask them to participate, one needs a strong reason. As such, having engaged performers is the key to commanding an audience – a frequent sin committed in immersive theatre is having an audience that outnumbers its actors. As a result, “the show’s success depends not on performer energy but spectator passion.” (Gillenson 2013)

It’s just disappointing that a lot of shows don’t have very high artistic aspirations.

Another challenge in immersive theatre is simply the defining question of – what is theatre? If theatre is about narrative, it needs to have a clear one set in place. How much scripting is required to ensure you don’t simply have reality? This is a frequent critique of series like Gatsby, which do not tell a traditional linear story, but simply create a roleplaying experience for its guests. As noted by Nosheen Iqbal’s 2020 article for The Guardian, “At the moment, the problem is that a lot of different work is lumped under the immersive banner. Maybe we need different names for different genres within it.” Theatre director Andrzej Lukowski was quoted in agreement by saying, “The fact that it wants to be called theatre is interesting,” he says. “It’s light interaction, drinks at the bar and a middlebrow party night. But that’s fine. If they were taking up a West End theatre you might quibble, but they’re often making use of abandoned buildings. It’s just disappointing that a lot of shows don’t have very high artistic aspirations.”

A similar example of an unsuccessful immersive theatre show is The Wolf of Wall Street, based on the Martin Scorsese film. The play is more akin to a theme park ride than an immersive show, with audiences scarcely getting the chance to truly influence the performance and its story. The play simply moves from setpiece to setpiece, rarely making deep commentary or allowing for an involved sense of engagement. The play is too heavily controlled, which draws into question why it is immersive to begin with. Finally, and most disturbingly, Kate Wyver’s review for The Guardian (2019) noted that here was a tendency for “over-zealous audience members [to] use the characters’ vile behaviour as an excuse to echo it themselves”. An environment that is unsafe for performers, spectators, and society alike is one that does not belong in the theatre.

Gillinsen did, however, write a second article (2013) where she offered advice on how to make an engaging interactive experience. My biggest takeaway is her fourth point: immersive theatre creators should keep it simple. It’s easy to become indulgent and run fantastic amid a huge space or want to create an experience spanning numerous buildings, sets, and locations, but it’s hard to create a good show. If you’re able to hone down your immersive theatre experience to its brass tacks, you can create a stronger, consistent story, and provide something truly enrichening to your audience.

Immersive theatre is not simply a replacement for theatre, but another way it can be created. Immersive theatre is a form that itself has a large amount of maturation to do, and it remains in question how large a niche it truly is among the credible theatrical audience. If we want immersive theatre to truly be meaningful, we need to create a sense of intimacy, a sense of confidence, and use the format simply because it allows for the best possible story to be told.

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