History
Shadowland Repertory Company (named after the early Hollywood magazine, Shadowland) was founded [1] in 1982 by Whitney Smith and Victor Coleman with a mandate of producing musicals using shadow puppetry and other alternative theatrical media. The first production, Radio Ghost, [2] a musical about the fictional meeting of Canadian radio inventor Reginald Fessenden and radio diva Jessica Dragonette, was co-written by Smith and Coleman and toured artist-run centres across Canada.
During the World Stage in 1982, the British company Welfare State International worked in collaboration with the Toronto Island community to produce the Tempest on Snake Island. Inspired by this production, Island residents Smith and Sarah Miller raised funds for a second Shadowland production, along the same lines, to be part of the city's 1984 sesquicentennial celebrations. Welfare State principals Boris and Maggie Howarth were hired to assist and the result was "Island Follies", a historical fantasia. [3] In 1985, Smith and Coleman handed over the company to the key group of Toronto Island artists who worked on the show – Kathleen Doody, Leida Englar, Jerry Englar, Brad Harley and Sarah Miller – and it was renamed Shadowland Theatre.
Shadowland's early development was significantly influenced by Welfare State's format of professional artists engaging communities in collective performance, and this method has become the backbone of Shadowland's way of working ever since. Other major influences are Bread and Puppet Theater, Peter Minshall and Trinidad Carnival ( leading to many years of involvement in Caribana parades) and ongoing working relationships with many Caribbean artists. These influences have contributed to Shadowland's bold and visually distinctive form of theatre and performance events. In the past decade the theatre has created signature processional outdoor theatre performances and collaborated with a wide range of communities and artists from many disciplines.
Vaudeville is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition or light poetry, interspersed with songs or ballets. It became popular in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s, but the idea of vaudeville's theatre changed radically from its French antecedent.
The Toronto Islands are a chain of 15 small islands in Lake Ontario, south of mainland Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Comprising the only group of islands in the western part of Lake Ontario, the Toronto Islands are located just offshore from the city's downtown area and provide shelter for Toronto Harbour. The islands are home to parkland, the Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, several yacht clubs, Centreville Amusement Park, a residential area, and several beaches. The island community is considered to be the largest urban car-free community in North America, although some service vehicles are permitted. Access to the Islands is by ferry, including the City of Toronto ferries operating from Jack Layton Ferry Terminal at the foot of Bay Street, or by water taxis.
Community theatre refers to theatrical performance made in relation to particular communities—its usage includes theatre made by, with, and for a community. It may refer to theatre that is made entirely by a community with no outside help, or to a collaboration between community members and professional theatre artists, or to performance made entirely by professionals that is addressed to a particular community. Community theatres range in size from small groups led by single individuals that perform in borrowed spaces to large permanent companies with well-equipped facilities of their own. Many community theatres are successful, non-profit businesses with a large active membership and, often, a full-time professional staff. Community theatre is often devised and may draw on popular theatrical forms, such as carnival, circus, and parades, as well as performance modes from commercial theatre.
Marian Ruth Engel was a Canadian novelist and a founding member of the Writers' Union of Canada. Her most famous and controversial novel was Bear (1976), a tale of erotic love between a librarian and a bear.
Canada's contemporary theatre reflects a rich diversity of regional and cultural identities. Since the late 1960s, there has been a concerted effort to develop the voice of the 'Canadian playwright', which is reflected in the nationally focused programming of many of the country's theatres. Within this 'Canadian voice' are a plurality of perspectives - that of the First Nations, new immigrants, French Canadians, sexual minorities, etc. - and a multitude of theatre companies have been created to specifically service and support these voices.
Granville Island is a peninsula and shopping district in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It is located across False Creek from Downtown Vancouver under the south end of the Granville Street Bridge. The peninsula was once an industrial manufacturing area, but today it is a hotspot for Vancouver tourism and entertainment. The area was named after Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville.
Experimental theatre began in Western theatre in the late 19th century with Alfred Jarry and his Ubu plays as a rejection of both the age in particular and, in general, the dominant ways of writing and producing plays. The term has shifted over time as the mainstream theatre world has adopted many forms that were once considered radical.
Judith Clare Thompson, OC F.R.S. is a Canadian playwright who lives in Toronto, Ontario. She has twice been awarded the Governor General's Award for drama, and is the recipient of many other awards including the Order of Canada, the Walter Carsen Performing Arts Award, the Toronto Arts Award, The Epilepsy Ontario Award, The B'nai B'rith Award, the Dora, the Chalmers, the Susan Smith Blackburn Award and the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award, both for Palace of the End, which premiered at Canadian Stage, and has been produced all over the world in many languages. She has received honorary doctorates from Thorneloe University and, in Nov. 2016, Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.
Theatre Passe Muraille is a theatre company in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Edward Franklin Albee II was an American vaudeville impresario.
Carlos Bulosan Theatre (CBT) is the only long-standing professional Filipino-Canadian theatre company in Canada and is based in Toronto, Ontario. It was founded in 1982 by activists Fely Villasin, Martha Ocampo, Voltaire de Leon, Ging Hernandez and Bernie Consul under the name Carlos Bulosan Cultural Workshop. Now in its 37th year, CBT continues to celebrate its history of artistic activity and service to Filipino-Canadians and their broader community.
Ruth Howard is a Canadian artist who creates large-scale arts and theatre projects with urban communities and has been called "a key figure in the Canadian Community Play movement". She is currently the Artistic Director of Jumblies Theatre, a company she founded in 2001.
Kathleen Elizabeth McDonnell is a Canadian author. She has been writing plays, fiction and non-fiction for both adults and young audiences since the late 1970s, and has also been a freelance broadcaster for CBC Radio.
Slash Coleman is an American storyteller, producer, and writer who lives in Richmond, Virginia. The author of "The Bohemian Love Diaries," a personal perspectives blogger for Psychology Today, and a laughter yoga teacher, he is best known for his one-man performance-based storytelling shows which combine clever wordplay, music, and poetic observations about family, spirituality, romantic relationships, and struggles to find a sense of home common with Generation X artists. His work is often compared to that of author David Sedaris.
Margaret Dragu is a Canadian dancer, writer, performance artist and feminist.
The Society for the Preservation of Wild Culture (SPWC) was a Toronto arts organization in existence from 1986 to 1991 that explored environmental and ecological issues from an artistic perspective in a "quirky and innovative" way. The SPWC was best known for three programs: a literary magazine, The Journal of Wild Culture; artist-guided walks, "landscape readings"; and a series of cabarets, The Café of Wild Culture.
Welfare State International was a British experimental theatre group formed in 1968 by John Fox and Sue Gill, Roger Coleman and others. It became "A collective of radical artists and thinkers who explored ideas of celebratory art and spectacle between 1968 and 2006."
The Theatre Centre is a performing arts organization and theatre venue in Toronto. It is nationally recognized as a live-arts incubator for the cultural sector in the city. It also provide meeting space for Toronto residents.
Baņuta Rubess is a Canadian theatre director, playwright, and professor. She co-wrote This is For You, Anna as a member of the Anna Project. Rubess was a co-recipient of the 1988 Floyd S. Chalmers Canadian Play Award for children's theatre for her play Thin Ice.
