Canadian Theatre Studies

See also: Theatre > National Theatre Studies and Theatre Criticism, History & Theory New

Canadian Shakespeare
Susan Knutson
Looking at what has been done with Shakespeare in Canada, starting in the 1980s, this book focuses on Canadian Shakespeare in relation to theatre performance and pedagogy, selecting from the remarkable body of published work in this area, as well as including two never-before-published essays. Softcover, 214 pp. $25.00.

Popular Political Theatre and Performance
Julie Salverson
This collection of new and previously published writing presents an exchange of voices, sometimes in disagreement and creative tension, working through the stories, dreams, adventures, analyses, and dilemmas of popular political theatre in English Canada, between the early 1980s and the present day. Softcover, 215 pp. $25.00.

No Culture, No Future
Simon Brault Translated by Jonathan Kaplansky
A longtime advocate of the arts in Montreal, Brault has taken action to re-establish that city as one of the most culturally accomplished communities in Canada. No Culture, No Future is part of his campaign to convince the people and governments of cities across Canada that investment in the arts benefits all citizens. $21.00.

Ex Machina: From Page to Stage
Patrick Caux & Bernard Gilbert
In 1993 Robert Lepage suggested to his colleagues that a specific image and identity be found for his next working group. He imposed one condition - the word "theatre" was not to be part of the name of the new company. This book documents the results of that landmark decision: the dynamic creative arts company Ex Machina, constantly on the move in search of new forms of storytelling. Softcover, $29.95.

My Subtext Was Too Loud: Further Anecdotes from the Canadian Theatre
Vernon Chapman
This, the second volume of Vernon Chapman's reminiscences, covers the years 1970 until his death in 2008. They continue to tell of Chapman's rich experiences as an actor, director and artistic director in theatres across Canada and in television and film. His ability to recount in sometimes very amusing and always accurate detail, makes this theatre memoir a must read for anyone interested in Canadian cultural history.
Chapman imbues his memoirs with the openess and generosity which marked him as a performer and a true "man of the theatre." Softcover 22.00 Includes CD with extensive production photos.

Burlesque West: Showgirls, Sex, and Sin in Postwar Vancouver
Becki L. Ross
Lavishly illustrated and thoroughly documented, Burlesque West is the first critical history of Vancouver's notorious striptease scene. Drawing on extensive archival materials and interviews with fifty former dancers, strip-club owners, booking agents, choreographers, and musicians, Becki L.Ross has weaved together a fascinating social history of the phenomenon that combines sex, art, entertainment, and commerce. Like its subject, this book is sure to stimulate, delight, and, maybe even, offend. Softcover, 373 pp. $29.95.

Risking the Void: The Scenography of Cameron Porteous
Sean Breaugh & Patricia Flood
Not simply a scenographer, Cameron Porteous is a first-rate visual artist. With an aesthetic steeped in the codes of modernism -- less is more, form follows function, and God is in the details -- he has created a world-class body of work for the Canadian stage. This splendid volume brings together a remarkable array of visual material -- photographs, sketches, painting, and models -- to pay tribute to his stunning artistry. Softcover, 92 pp. $29.95.

Developing Nation: New Play Creation in English-Speaking Canada
Bruce Barton
Repeatedly, throughout this collection, dramaturgy resists the mantle of stable definition and instead insists on perpetually redefining itself in relation to its context: the people, projects, and parameters it operates upon and within. Yet, as other entries in this collection demonstrate, this wary elusiveness concerning definitions in no way precludes concrete description and analysis of its "working parts." Softcover, 208 pp. $25.00.

Design and Scenography
Natalie Rewa
This anthology explores the crucial collaboration that happens between directors and designers in the theatre. By focusing on a variety of artists and creative approaches, these essays seek to demystify the process of visualizing a script for the stage. Special consideration is given to the decidedly Canadian preoccupation with cultural and regional diversity that is so central to Canadian national identity. Softcover, 162 pp. $30.00.

Art and Politics: The History of the National Arts Centre
Sarah Jennings
This is the story of the creation and first four decades of one of Canada's pre-eminent cultural organizations. While it documents the history of the country's National Arts Centre in Ottawa, it also describes the arts in Canada from the 1960s to the present. Written in a gripping documentary style, moving from episode to episode, the story is enriched by the personal memories of those who participated in the making of the NAC, including the leading artists, managers, officials, and politicians who were involved. Hardcover, 426 pp. $50.00.

"Ethnic," Multicultural, and Intercultural Theatre
Ric Knowles & Ingrid Mundel
This volume traces some of the critical histories of theatre in Canada that have represented "ethnic," multicultural, or intercultural communities and collaborations since the late 1980s. Included are essays by Angela Baldassarre, Lorena Gale, Ric Knowles, Carol Off, Guillermo Verdecchia, Jerry Wasserman, and several others. Softcover, 206 pp. $25.00.

A History of Canadian Culture
Jonathan F. Vance
From Dorset sculpture to the Barenaked Ladies, award-winning historian Jonathan F. Vance reveals a storyteller's ear for narrative. In a country this diverse, 'culture' has different meanings. Vance tells a story from the wind-swept Arctic where a stranded Innu woman, fighting to survive, took the time to decorate her clothing with rich designs. In this fascinating text, Vance considers a range of relevent topics. Hardcover, 500 pp. $39.95.

A Gift for their Mother
Muriel Gold
A Gift for their Mother is a most valuable contribution to Canadian theatre history. Muriel Gold's well researched and entertaining book documents and pays tribute to the efforts to create and sustain English and Yiddish theatre at Montreal's Saidye Bronfman Centre. Softcover, 336 pp. $29.95.

The Royal Alexandra Theatre: A Celebration Of 100 Years
Robert Brockhouse
with a photo essay by Edward Burtynsky
The Royal Alexandra Theatre: A Celebration Of 100 Years is the story of a Canadian national landmark and beloved Toronto institution and of the dogged and devoted champions - from Mulock to Mirvish - who have kept it alive, thriving and triumphant for a century. Filled with seldom-seen archival photos and tales of the stars of the theatre's past, it features a complete chronology of all the shows that have ever played the Royal Alex - from Top O' Th' World in 1907 to Dirty Dancing. The Royal Alexandra Theatre gives you the inside information why and how the theatre was built as it is, from the world's first women's hat-check room to the steep slope of the upper balcony. The book features a photo essay by the world-renowned photographer Edward Burtynsky. Hardcover, 352 pp. $39.95.

The Theatricality of Robert Lepage
Aleksandar Sasa Dundjerovic
Robert Lepage, one of the pioneers and the main exponents of mixed-media performance, is internationally renowned for a notoriously distinct aesthetic. In the first book to explore Lepage's practical work, Aleksandar Dundjerovic offers a comprehensive analysis of his creative process and transformative mise-en-scene. Softcover, 252 pp. $32.95.

Where Stories Meet: An Oral History of De-ba-jeh-mu-jig Theatre
Shannon Hengen
Where Stories Meet is both history and commentary. Vivid accounts of the early and middle years of North America's longest running Aboriginal theatre, De-ba-jeh-mu-jig, when the resourcefulness of the founding members was challenged to the limit, intermix with incisive views on the place of Aboriginal theatre in the Canadian mainstream today. Softcover, 108 pp. $19.95.

Space and the Geographies of Theatre
Michael McKinnie
The essays comprising this collection demonstrate a welcome diversity of critical interest and critical practice. The contributions demonstrate that Canadian theatre criticism has a healthy contribution to make to geographical investigations of theatre internationally. Softcover, 226 pp. $25.00.

Queer Theatre in Canada
Edited by Rosalind Kerr
"While the material presented in these articles may appear to be too diverse to allow us to come to any conclusion as to where Canadian English queer theatre is today, I hope that I have at least set out a path to follow from those first gay liberation plays to the complex interrogations of the intersections of sexualities which seem to inform so much of the work."- from the Introduction by Rosalind Kerr. Softcover, 282 pp. $30.00.

City Stages: Theatre and Urban Space in a Global City
Michael McKinnie
In every major city, there exists a complex exchange between urban space and the institution of the theatre. City Stages is an interdisciplinary and materialist analysis of this relationship as it has existed in Toronto since 1967. Locating theatre companies - their sites and practices - in Toronto's urban environment, Michael McKinnie focuses on the ways in which the theatre has adapted to changes in civic ideology, environment, and economy. Hardcover, 178 pp. $45.00.

Field of Stars: Songs of the Canadian Musical Theatre Volume 1 ed Jim Betts
This compilation spans 52 years of Canadian musical theatre. It includes the sheet music for 17 songs from these hit show, a CD of the piano/vocal performances of each song, and a bonus CD of the individual piano accompaniments. Among the shows included are Pelagie, Eight to the Bar, House of Martin Guerre, Billy Bishop Goes to War, Dracula: A Chamber Musical.  Coil Bound, 2 CD's. $41.95.

Two Hands Clapping
Kit Brennan
A goldmine for actors seeking two-person plays, Two Hands Clapping features full-length, one act, and short scripts for two actors, as well as in-depth interviews with playwrights. The playwrights are Canadian and include established writers, as well as voices that are just beginning to make their mark in Canadian theatre. Plays include: Afterglow by Peter Boychuk, Lola Shuffles the Cards by Kit Brennan. Jane's Thumb by Kelley Jo Burke, 3... 2... 1 by Nathan Cuckow and Chris Craddock, The Dinner Party by Rose Cullis, The House Wife by Ruth Lawrence and Sherry White, Poochwater by Mike McPhaden, and The File by Greg Nelson. Softcover, 330 pp.  $24.95.

Reflections in a Dancing Eye: Investigating the Artist's Role in Canadian Society
Joysanne Sidimus & Carol Anderson
Featuring 47 prominant Canadians - artists, politicians, scientists, academics, and business leaders, Reflections in a Dancing Eye is a timely look at the role of the arts and the artists in Canadian society. Part conversation, part memoir, each unique reply begins from the same set of questions. Contributors include June Callwood, Wayson Choy, Evelyn Hart, Karen Kain, Mark Kingwell, Zacharias Kunuk, Silken Laumann, David MacFarlane, Preston Manning, Svend Robinson, Albert Schultz, and Veronica Tennant. Softcover, 403 pp. $32.95.

Broadway North: The Dream of a Canadian Musical Theatre
Mel Atkey
Did you know that the idea behind the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes was first tried out in Toronto? That Canada produced the world's longest-running annual revue? Or that Anne of Green Gables has played more performances at the Charlottetown Festival than South Pacific did in its original Broadway production? All this and more is illuminated in Mel Atkey's enthusiastic tribute to Canadian musical theatre. Softcover, 309 pp. $29.95.

Theatre Without Borders
Robert Astle
An in-depth look at the amazing crew of eccentrics, absurdist, puppeteers, clowns, raconteurs and solo performance artists who influence and invigorate the current theatre scene in Canada. The companies profiled are from coast to coast and include: Harro Maskow & Robin Patterson/Theatre Beyond Words, Daniel Meillieur & Monique Rioux/Les Deux Mondes, Yves Dagenais, aka Omer Veilleux, Michele Smith & Dean Gilmour /Theatre Smith-Gilmour, Leah Cherniak & Martha Ross/Theatre Columbus, Wayne Specht/Axis Theatre, Wendy Gorling, renowned teacher and performer, Ronnie Burkett/Theatre of Marionettes, and S. Hunter, C. Murray, S. Wallace & M. MacLean /Jest in Time. Softcover, 144 pp. $22.95.

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From Fire to Flood: A History of Theatre in Manitoba
Kevin Longfield
A study of the characters and companies which have influenced the past 150 years of theatre development in Manitoba, placing this development in its social and historical context. Softcover, 272 pp. $19.95.

Feminist Theatre and Performance
Susan Bennett
Critical perspectives on theatre practices have changed and diversified in the last 30 years of the twentieth century, due in no small part to the contributions of feminist criticism and theory. New attention to the representation of women on stage as well as, more broadly, women working in the theatre radically shifted not only the terms of analysis, but also the range and variety of theatrical work given scholarly consideration. Not surprisingly, an important emphasis of feminist critical work has been feminist theatre and performance practice. This volume collects some of the essays published over this period and so seeks to contribute to a history of feminist theatre in Canada. Softcover, 161 pp. $25.00.

The Masks of Judith Thompson
Ric Knowles
As an acting student at the National Theatre School of Canada, Judith Thompson discovered writing through a mask class; however, for her, masks are much more than the route through which she came to be a writer -- they are her way of writing. These essays examine how Judith Thompson turns her back on her own public persona and dons the masks of each of her characters in order to discover what they have to say and their richly various ways of saying it. Softcover, 149 pp. $25.00.

George F. Walker
Harry Lane
Since 1971, George F. Walker has become one of the most prominent and innovative English-language writers on the Canadian theatre scene, with some 30 stage scripts professionally produced, an extensive career writing for television, radio, and film, and a host of major awards. Through a representative selection of scholarly articles and illuminating interviews that Walker has given over the years, this volume provides a variety of critical perspectives on the playwright's career. Softcover, 205 pp. $25.00.

A Compact History of Canadian Theatre
Brian Kennedy
Discovering the richness of Canadian theatre over the past two centuries or so should be the product of cultural histories. In Canada, such detailed studies are still scattered in a bewildering array of scholarly articles and original texts. Why should students of Canadian theatre have to search through rare book rooms to find, read and act their own drama? This anthology offers a modest answer. It is a collection of 25 representative playwrights and their work, divided over six historical periods, from 1606 to 2001. A brief cultural overview of the era, notes on each playwright, and suggestions for staging are followed by five scenes from each period. Softcover, 273 pp. $26.00.

Contemporary Canadian Plays: Overviews and Close Encounters
Albert-Reiner Glaap & Michael Heinze
This volume signposts ways of gaining an insight into contemporary Canadian drama. It contains twelve essays on various English Canadian plays which were written over the past fifteen years and thus allow glimpses of recent trends and developments. Among the playwrights discussed are Judith Thompson, George F. Walker, Jason Sherman, Tomson Highway, and Drew Hayden Taylor. Softcover, 148 pp. $24.95.

Aboriginal Drama and Theatre
Rob Appleford
Aboriginal drama and theatre in Canada is a rich subject, and this collection marks only a beginning in the process of watching, studying, and understanding its complexity and liberative possibilities. Contributors include: Tomson Highway, Sheila Rabillard, Floyd Favel Starr, Alan Filewood, Reid Gilbert, Drew Hayden Taylor, Robert Nunn, Yvette Nolan, Ric Knowles, Geraldine Manossa, Daniel David Moses, Rob Appleford, Armand Garnet Ruffo. Softcover, 187 pp. $25.00.

African-Canadian Theatre
Maureen Moynagh
From theatre and performance history to dramaturgical form, from cultural memory to post-colonial (re)enactments, and from diasporic aesthetics to acts of sexual reclamation, these essays address a number of important thematic and performance concerns. Contributors include: Robert Breon, George Elliott Clarke, Alan Filewood, Margaret Jane Kidnie, Maureen Moynagh, Rinaldo Walcott, Rachael Van Fossen, and Andrea Davis. Softcover, 130 pp. $25.00.

Judith Thompson
Ric Knowles
This entry into the Critical Perspectives on Canadian Theatre in English series presents a representative sampling of critical essays focusing on the work of Judith Thompson. The contributors include: George Toles, Robert C. Nunn, Julie Adam, Jen Harvie, Sherrill Grace, Craig Stewart Walker, Claudia Barnett, Penny Farfan, Dalbir Singh, Robyn Read, Laura Levin, and Kim Solga. Those interested in the plays of Judith Thompson will find this anthology to be fascinating and rewarding. Softcover, 156 pp. $25.00.

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Mermaid: A Puppet Theatre in Motion
Alice Walsh
First established in response to the need for live drama in rural areas, Mermaid Theatre -- based in Windsor, Nova Scotia -- swiftly rose to international acclaim. Author Alice Walsh uses Mermaid's productions, from The Nose to Guess How Much I Love You, to tell the story of the company's evolution in the history of Canadian theatre. Recreating productions from their inception, through the design and rehearsal phases, to opening nights at home and abroad, this book offers a unique look at the creative energy and raw materials required to tour productions around the world. Softcover, 134 pp. $31.95.

Glass Cage: The Crest Theatre Story
Paul Illidge
The long-awaited book about Canada's first permanent professional theatre, the Crest. With over 150 productions during the 1950s and 1960s and a Who's Who list of actors, directors and designers, the Crest's achievements remain unsurpassed. "It's high time we celebrate the Crest for bringing performing arts and performing artists out of the wilderness and into the world of modern Canadian living" - Timothy Findley. 160 pages with photographs. Hardcover, $44.95, softcover $24.95.

Canadian Theatre History: Selected Readings
Don Rubin
This essential text, now in its second edition, is a collection of original documents and publications by Canadian theatre professionals and cultural commentators. Written over the course of the twentieth century, this selections address the development of theatre in Canada: the influence of foreign touring syndicates, the Dominion Drama Festival, regional theatres, as well as the impacts of the Massey Commission, the Stratford Festival, and the alternative theatre movement. Softcover, 420 pp. $35.00.

Cirque du Soleil: 20 Years Under the Sun
Tony Babinski & Kristian Manchester
Published to coincide with the twentieth anniversary of Cirque du Soleil, this beguiling retrospective is told by the artists and performers themselves. Illustrated cover-to-cover, with over 300 photographs, this beautiful volume captures all of the magic that has made Cirque du Soleil an international phenomenon. Hardcover, Colour and B&W photographs, 352 pp. $75.00.

Stepping Out: The Golden Age of Montreal Night Clubs
Nancy Marrelli
From the 1920s until the early 1950s, Montreal had an international reputation as a city of good times and great entertainment; this engaging cultural history is a time capsule of that era. Primarily a visual document, Stepping Out lets us see all of the glamour and excitement of this period in Montreal's history. A tantalizing taste of a bygone era. Softcover, 141 pp. $27.95.

Canadian Sayings 3
1,000 Folk sayings Used by Canadians
Bill Casselman
Bill Casselman, Canada's master-gatherer of funny folk-sayings, returns with fresh bounty - a thousand new folk sayings not collected in his previous two volumes of maxims, saws and adages. Softcover, 160 pp. $10.99.

Marigraph: Gauging the Tides of Drama from New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, & Prince Edward Island
Bruce Barton
This collection of plays from Canada's East Coast, features prize-winning works that have been produced across the country, as well as regionally staged plays that deserve national attention. Includes plays by: Charlie Rhindress, Norm Foster, Daniel MacIvor, George Boyd, Wendy Lill, Michael Melski, George Elliot Clarke, Bryden MacDonald, Melissa Mullen, and Kent Stetson. Softcover, 423 pp. $39.95.

The Defiant Imagination
Max Wyman
Canada's commitment to the arts is long-standing. Today that commitment is more crucial than ever. In The Defiant Imagination, Max Nyman calls for a new cultural contract between government and society, a contract that commits Canada -- and individual Canadians -- to a vision of culture as a catalyst for economic prosperity, social health and national identity. Softcover, 243 pp. $22.95.

The Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature
Eva-Marie Kroller
This book offers a comprehensive and lively introduction to major writers, genres and topics in Canadian literature. Broad surveys of fiction, drama and poetry are complemented by chapters on Aboriginal writing, francophone writing, autobiography, literary criticism, writing by women and the emergence of urban writing in a country historically defined by it's regions. Contributors to this book pay special attention to the social, political and economic developments that have informed literary events. Softcover, 292 pp. $33.95.

Voices From Canada: Focus on Thirty Plays
Albert-Reiner Glaap
Introduces the reader to 30 Canadian plays in the form of overviews. Specifies details regarding first performance, director, cast of characters, plot outline, stage setting, available editions, and information about performance rights and the authors' agents. Softcover 142 pp. $25.00.

Shaw Festival Production Record
1962 - 1999
Denis Johnson and Joan German
With a disposition for the plays of George Bernard Shaw and his contemporaries, The Shaw Festival is the second largest repertory theatre in North America. Telling The Shaw's story in the form of data, this book details the breadth of choice and the persistent growth of this remarkable theatre company. Softcover, 275 pp. $20.00.

Wild Theatre: The History of One Yellow Rabbit
Martin Morrow
This breezy, irreverent story tells the history of the company considered by many to be English Canada's foremost creation theatre. A lively, intimate tale, Wild Theatre tracks the Rabbits through two decades of daring experiments, national controversy, and international success. Softcover, 400 pp. $24.95.


Hiding the Audience: Viewing Arts & Arts Institutions on the Prairies
Frances W. Kaye
This intelligently written book examines how the development of Canadian prairie arts institutions in the context of an implicitly Euro/Anglo-Canadian audience clashed with the creation of regional arts that needed to acknowledge a Native Canadian presence to flourish. A persuasively agrued treatise on viewing arts and arts institutions on the prairies. Softcover, 301 pp. $34.95.


Fifty Years at Stratford 
by Robert Cushman
The Official Book of Stratford Festival's 50th Anniversary
A sumptuous large format book marking the 50th anniversary of the "envy of the English speaking theatre world." Lavishly illustrated with colour production photos and costume sketches, the text by respected theatre critic and writer Robert Cushman, provides fascinating behind the scenes stories and more about each of Stratford's "Artistic Regimes," from Tyrone Guthrie to Richard Monette. Candid observations from the Festival's various company members including Martha Henry, Maggie Smith, William Hutt, Peter Ustinov, Christopher Plummer and many others add a special element to the sense of the magnificent history of this very special theatre. Signed copies available. $60.00.

Stratford Gold: 50 Years, 50 Stars, 50 Conversations
Richard Ouzounian
This unique book is a collection of interviews with fifty performing artists who had a unique role in the history of The Stratford Festival. Includes discussions with such luminaries as: Tom Patterson, Timothy Findley, Christopher Plummer, Maggie Smith, Zoe Caldwell, Alan Bates, Martha Henry, William Hutt, Peter Ustinov, William Shatner and others.Statford Gold also features interviews with all of the surviving Artistic Directors: Michael Langham, Robin Phillips, John Neville, David William and Richard Monette. Hardcover, 397 pp., $29.95.

A Fly on the Curtain
Fred Euringer
Professor Emeritus of Theatre (Queen's University) Fred Euringer has had a long experience with the development of theatre in Canada, particularly Ontario, where he worked as an actor in the early days of the Stratford Festival, summer stock and much more. In this highly readable and engaging memoir, he looks back with a sharp eye to create an amusing and accurate picture of the "crazy fifties" and after. Softcover, $19.95.

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Last modified August 8, 2010.
Please note that all prices are in Canadian dollars. All prices are subject to change without notice.