Picture a circle of kids on the grass, a story unfolding in front of them, and no ticket to buy. The plays are free, they happen in a park, and university students perform them with a handful of props that pack up fast.
That’s Wagonstage, founded in 1971 and 50 years old in 2021. Wagonstage Children’s Theatre is run by the Drama program at the University of Calgary’s School of Creative and Performing Arts in partnership with the City of Calgary.
It’s an itinerant company, which is a fancy way of saying it travels. Each summer the troupe turns up in Calgary parks and playgrounds and puts on free outdoor plays. Budgets are small, so everything has to be portable and do more than one job. A prop is a prop until it’s a hat. A set piece becomes something else in the next scene. Clever.
Three people are named as the originators who developed it in the early days: Joyce Doolittle, Kathleen Foreman and Brian Dorscht. Doolittle’s own memories of a 1970s summer performance in Riley Park make the whole thing feel close enough to touch. She describes characters in the commedia dell’arte style, stock figures like the doctor, the captain, the gossip, the old man and the lovers. Think broad, funny, quick-moving characters that a six-year-old can read from fifty feet away.
The cast comes from the university’s Drama department, so students earn paid summer work and real pre-professional experience. Foreman called Wagonstage a cultural partnership between a university and a municipality, which is a tidy way to describe it. The city gets free theatre in its parks. The students get a stage and a paycheque.
The university’s own write-up also ties Wagonstage to the growth of theatre for young audiences in Canada, and to the old commedia dell’arte tradition of masks, stock characters and plenty of chasing about. Those are big ideas, and they land in a small, friendly way.
Dorscht, who also founded Calgary Young People’s Theatre in 1992, later became the City of Calgary’s Wagonstage Coordinator. One of the productions he directed was Simpleton Marvellous, Wagonstage’s 35th production. Theatre professor and playwright Clem Martini wrote a book for the 50th anniversary, drawing on archives, photos and interviews with dozens of people connected to the company.
The same spirit shows up across the city’s children’s theatre story. Back in 1970, Theatre Calgary’s affiliated touring company Caravan was already taking plays to young audiences. The belief that kids deserve good theatre close to home seems to run deep here. For more on a company that grew from a classroom, have a look at Betty Mitchell and Workshop 14.
Next summer, look up where Wagonstage is playing and take a blanket to the park. Bring a kid if you have one handy, or borrow a neighbour’s.
Sources: University of Calgary, A Half Century of Wagonstage; The Canadian Encyclopedia, Theatre Calgary.
If this one hooked you, try The Calgary Fringe Found Its Home in Inglewood, then How Alberta Ballet Found Its Calgary Home.
More from the archive: CSIF Calgary Has Backed Independent Filmmakers Since 1978.
Quick answers
Wagonstage is a free children’s theatre founded in 1971 that turned 50 in 2021. It is run by the Drama program at the University of Calgary’s School of Creative and Performing Arts in partnership with the City of Calgary, and each summer it puts on free outdoor plays in Calgary parks and playgrounds.
University students from the Drama department perform the plays, so they earn paid summer work and pre professional experience. Three people are named as originators who developed it in the early days, Joyce Doolittle, Kathleen Foreman and Brian Dorscht.
No. The plays are free and happen in Calgary parks. The cast is made up of university students who perform with a handful of portable props that pack up fast, and the company travels to parks and playgrounds each summer.
