The Oxford Companion To Canadian Theatre

The past twenty years have seen an extraordinary and exciting growth in Canadian theater. Today, 200 professional theater companies span the country and more than 10,000 published plays appear in bibliographies. The Oxford Companion to Canadian Theatre is the first reference book to document the growth and development of Canadian drama and theater in English and French--from its beginnings to the present day. The book offers 680 entries written by 155 contributors that provide biographies of actors, playwrights, directors, and designers; major theaters, including 19th-century theaters, and companies; major plays; and numerous miscellaneous subjects such as collective theater, design, directing, ethnic theater, musical theater, radio and television drama, and local theater. The result of almost four years' research, this authoritative reference offers a wealth of fascinating and important information, as well as over 200 beautiful illustrations.

Contains over 1,100 entries covering mainly English-Canadian literature, and including new author and title entries, as well as extensive genre surveys.

An authoritative reference covering primarily actors, playwrights, directors, styles and movements, companies and organizations.

Based on the Oxford Companion to the Theatre, this searchable database contains entries on theatrical styles, dramatists, performers, and directors, as well as information on theatres, festivals, and such technical topics as lighting, sound, and method acting.

The Second Edition of The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature, now in its third printing, is a landmark reference work. Reducing its 1200 pages by almost one half this concise edition will make the core contents of the original volume accessible to a much wider range of readers. Someentries have been shortened and others have been dropped, including many genre and regional surveys (except for Aboriginal literature, Exploration literature, and Writing in New France) and articles on Quebecois and Acadian writers whose works have not been translated into English. The remainingentries, however, have all been updated to include new publications, and those on leading writers have in many cases been expanded. Finally, over sixty new entries have been added - including entries on Gail Anderson-Dargatz, Anne Cameron, Wayson Choy, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, TravorFerguson, Cecil Foster, D.M. Fraser, The Giller Prize, Elizabeth Hay, David Macfarlane, Peter Oliva, Kenneth Opel, Witold Rybczynski, Shyam Selvadurai, Russell Smith, and Margaret Visser - making this concise edition an indispensable supplement to the original companion. original companion.

In Montreal Whittaker witnessed the early careers of actors such as Christopher Plummer, Gratien Gélinas, John Colicos, Jean Gascon, Denise Pelletier, and Amelia Hall. He worked in close collaboration with many pioneers of the Little Theatre Movement, the Dominion Drama Festival, and Canadian theatre in general, such as Martha Allan, Charles Rittenhouse, and Pierre Dagenais. His involvement with Dagenais' L'Equipe allows him to report on the early days of francophone theatre in Montreal and the cross-fertilization between Martha Allan's Montreal Repertory Theatre and actor-directors such as Dagenais, Gratien Gélinas, and Yvette Brind'Amour. He also gives us glimpses of the early theatrical spaces in the city that no longer exist, as well as some, such as the Salle de Gésu and the Monument-National, that have survived. This engaging memoir of exciting times is prefaced by a personal tribute from Christopher Plummer and set in context through an introduction, chronology, and bibliography by Jonathan Rittenhouse. Illustrated with a selection of Whittaker's stage and costume designs as well as photographs, Setting the Stage provides a captivating visual record of the period and is a must for everyone interested in Canadian theatre, Canadian arts, culture, and Montreal.