Picture this. A theatre company is born in a log building that was already 74 years old.
The Canmore Opera House was built in 1898 by members of the H.W. McNeill Company Brass Band, and Heritage Park says locals called it the Band Hall. The Canadian Encyclopedia says it became Alberta Theatre Projects’ first home, a 165-seat room.
Who started ATP, and for whom
The University of Calgary Archives, which holds the company’s records from 1972 to 2000, describes ATP as a nonprofit founded that year, with Douglas Riske as artistic director and Lucille Wagner as managing director. Paddy Campbell contributed original children’s works.
The first mission, as the archive quotes it, was “using new work to bring Canadian history to life for young people.” A Theatre-in-Education division worked with the Calgary Public and Separate School Boards.
In 1973 the mandate grew to include an adult subscription season built around new Canadian plays. The Encyclopedia adds that early commissions included Campbell’s The History Show, and it reports more than 30 scripts in the first four years.
PlayRites and why it matters
ATP launched PlayRites in 1987 as, in the archive’s words, “a mid-winter festival of new works by Canadian playwrights.” The Encyclopedia says it had become “the country’s largest new play festival” by 1997, after a partnership with the Banff Centre.
Among the works it names as significant are Brad Fraser’s Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love, Sally Clark’s Moo and Eugene Stickland’s Some Assembly Required.
By the 2012-2013 season, the Encyclopedia counts more than 350 plays produced, at least 258 of them Canadian. That works out to about 74% Canadian content.
Our favourite detail is the order of events. The company wrote a mandate about Canadian stories for young people first, then built an adult season on top of it.
If you want to know why new Canadian plays have such a long runway in Calgary, that 1972 decision is where we would start looking.
For a different angle, read Workshop 14 Grew Up and Became Theatre Calgary. Calgary’s Stagehands Union Began With 18 Names in 1911 is good too. Or try Betty Mitchell, the botanist who built Calgary theatre for a change of pace.
Quick answers
Alberta Theatre Projects began in the Canmore Opera House, a log building from 1898 that the Canadian Encyclopedia says became its first home, a 165 seat room. Heritage Park says locals called it the Band Hall, because members of the H.W. McNeill Company Brass Band built it.
The University of Calgary Archives describes Alberta Theatre Projects as a nonprofit founded in 1972, with Douglas Riske as artistic director and Lucille Wagner as managing director. Its first mission was using new work to bring Canadian history to life for young people, through a Theatre in Education division working with Calgary school boards.
PlayRites is a midwinter festival of new works by Canadian playwrights that ATP launched in 1987. By 1997 the Canadian Encyclopedia says it had become the country’s largest new play festival, after a partnership with the Banff Centre. Works named include Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love.
By the 2012 to 2013 season, the Canadian Encyclopedia counts more than 350 plays produced by ATP, at least 258 of them Canadian. That works out to about 74 percent Canadian content, which fits a Calgary company that began with a mandate about Canadian stories.
More from the archive: The Palace Theatre in Calgary, Short and Sweet and The GRAND Theatre Has Played Many Parts Since 1912.
