THE THEATRE DEPARTMENT OF THE METROPOLITAN TORONTO LIBRARY

Abstract

Canada has a long and interesting theatrical history. Apparently it began in 1606 with a marine masque. The Theotre ofNepfune, written by Marc Lescarbot, a young lawyer from Paris. It was performed by sailors and voyageurs at Port Royal, Acadia, now Lower Granville, Nova Scotia. Three years after the entertainment, the first edition of the masque was printed in Paris; the verses are included in a volume entitled Les Muses de la NouvelleFrance. In the 18th century, army oflicers put on plays and concerts to relieve the tedium of garrison life. By the beginning of the 19th century, British and American touring companies had begun to bring professional acting to Canada. Interestingly enough, the plays they performed were often only weeks behind the original London productions. Not only important plays, but important personalities appeared on the Canadian stage. Henry Irving and Sarah Bernhardt, among many others, made frequent trips to the two Canadas. These touring troupes flourished until the Second World War. The modern history ofthe Canadian theatre begins in the early 1950s with the arrival of television, the establishment of the Stratford Festival, and the emergence in Montreal and Toronto of professional companies with high standards. The details and the complexity of the history outlined here need not only to be written but indeed to be discovered. It is not too much to say that the study of Canadian theatre history is in its initial heroic or exploratory stage. For this reason a theatre collection such as the one at the Metropolitan Toronto Library takes on an importance that is perhaps greater than that of collections in countries with a longer tradition of historical investigation. The Theatre Department is one ofcleven subject departments of the Metropolitan Toronto Library, which is generally acknowledged to be the most comprehensive of Canadian public library collections. In 1977, after seventyone years in a cramped and outdated Carnegie building, a spectacular new space designed by Raymond Moriyama was provided to serve the growing needs of a large metropolitan area. Despite its limitations, the old Carnegie building had one feature of special interest. In 1961 the renovation of its library auditorium into a 209-seat theatre permitted an important collabora-