Fall issue of Canadian Theatre Review is now available online

[Greenwood, Audrey]

Now available at CTR Online ...

CTR 156/Fall 2013 "Archives"<http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/w6704lp466qk/>
Edited by Kathryn Harvey and Jenn Stephenson

This issue looks at the unique characteristics of performing arts archives, the challenges of archivists working in them, and the challenges of researchers using them. Articles in this issue will address collaborations between archives and theatre companies; archives as themselves sites of theatre; the archive's relationship to theatre's liveness; digital archives, oddities in the theatrical archive (e.g. script marginalia); and post-colonial transformations of archival knowledge.
This issue contains:
Black Theatre Canada and Native Earth Performing Arts: A Slideshow<http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/a8k38501k8727162/>
Lee Puddephatt, Kathryn Harvey
In preparing issue 156 of CTR, the co-editors recognized the unfortunate absence of evidence (at least within submissions) of work on intercultural theatre archives. In order to rectify this gap and to demonstrate-even argue for increased emphasis on-the long-term preservation of these dynamic and significant contributions to the Canadian theatrical record, Jenn Stephenson and I decided to create a slideshow featuring two intercultural theatre archives that are available for research in the University of Guelph's Archival and Special Collections. The slideshow offers a quick look at the collections of two intercultural theatre companies that have had an important impact on the development of Canadian theatre: Black Theatre Canada (1973-1988) and Native Earth Performing Arts (1982-present). The wealth of creative power that Black Theatre Canada once brought and Native Earth Performing Arts continues to bring to Canadian theatre is amply evident in the images to follow. DOI: 10.3138/ctr.156.001b<http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/a8k38501k8727162/>
The Urgency of Archives<http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/e058l951t4583533/> (View this article for free)<http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/e058l951t4583533/?p=971199caa11f4dc69660348e9e51816b&pi=1>
Kathryn Harvey
Without abstract. DOI: 10.3138/ctr.156.001<http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/e058l951t4583533/>
Finding Urjo Kareda in the Archive<http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/e060466387w8r536/>
Jessica Riley
Hoping to get closer to her dissertation subject, the late Urjo Kareda, Jessica Riley embarks on a search through the dusty documents of the past. But is it really Kareda she finds in the archive? DOI: 10.3138/ctr.156.002<http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/e060466387w8r536/>
Narrative Threads: Juliet's Costumes and Their Contexts<http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/e135467r72164670/>
C. E. McGee
Examining records in the Stratford Festival Archive of costumes made for Juliets from 1960 to 2008, this paper discusses the significance of Juliet's costumes in themselves, in relation to costume changes that tell her story visually, and in broader social contexts: specifically, Canadian celebrity culture in 1992, inescapable Canadian politics in 1968, and the North American beauty myth in 1960. DOI: 10.3138/ctr.156.003<http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/e135467r72164670/>
Re-Thinking My Assumptions: Archival Research and the Writing of Our Kind of Work<http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/e1r43589q346n776/>
Dwayne Brenna
While researching background material for Our Kind of Work (Thistledown 2011), a book about the first decade of Saskatoon's Twenty-fifth Street Theatre, I found myself re-thinking long held assumptions about the theatre company and the theatre community in Saskatchewan. My expectation was that the theatre company had an amicable relationship with the Saskatchewan Arts Board through the company's early years. Twenty-fifth Street Theatre was, after all, the only professional theatre company in the province dedicated to producing Canadian plays, and the Arts Board was there to foster the growth of Saskatchewan's artistic scene. The relationship between the theatre company and the Arts Board was less than friendly, however, as is shown in several archival documents. I also assumed that the fledgling theatre company would find an ally in the local newspaper The Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, but the relationship was again unfriendly. Animosity between the theatre company and the newspaper culminated in a tense letter to a local reviewer which called for a public debate on the merits of one of the theatre company's productions. My archival research, performed in the Twenty-fifth Street Theatre Collection at the University of Saskatchewan Archives, taught me that my knowledge of the theatre's inner workings and of its relationships with other entities was far from complete. DOI: 10.3138/ctr.156.004<http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/e1r43589q346n776/>
The Archive on Display: Issues of Curating Performance Remains<http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/et83447288824u08/>
Ashley Williamson
This fall both the Stratford Festival and the National Ballet of Canada presented exhibits featuring material from their archives to mark their sixtieth seasons. These exhibitions are part of a trend for archives (in this case performance archives), to use their collections as a way to connect with their audiences. However, this impetus raises some difficult questions about who chooses the material and how it is displayed? Are those who have been entrusted with the preservation and categorization of these performance remains the best advocates in a gallery space, or do these exhibitions deserve collaborators from the curators, marketing and, public relations? DOI: 10.3138/ctr.156.005<http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/et83447288824u08/>
Dance Archives in an Online Environment: The Impact of Digital Media on the Preservation of Dance History<http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/r1hh3m412801n261/>
Natalia Esling
The archival strategies offered through the Dance Collections Danse (DCD) online database (based in Toronto) illuminate the emerging impulse to educate practitioners about archiving systems for the purpose of facilitating a more immediate organization of materials and information by the companies, choreographers, and dancers themselves. These strategies emphasize the importance of immediacy to the preservation of projects in theatrical dance, not only to avoid historical backtracking but also to generate a "living" history and a sustainable method for presenting contemporary movements in theatrical dance as they arise. While the move to digital archiving evokes the desire to preserve dance as a fundamental part of Canadian arts and cultural heritage, it also presents challenges vis-à-vis negotiating the most effective way to document this ephemeral art form in both development and production. This paper sets out to interrogate the relationship between dance archiving, the preservation of dance history, and digital media. DOI: 10.3138/ctr.156.006<http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/r1hh3m412801n261/>
Evidence of Artistic Process in Performing Arts Records<http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/r6125627q48j6306/>
Braden Cannon
Several archivists have identified various stages of performing arts processes during which records are created and can therefore be preserved. The records of performing arts organizations-particularly those directly related to the creative process such as set design or costume design, recordings of performances, and so forth-can become the source of inspiration for further performance. However, performing arts organizations must perform administrative functions that support the primary role of performance. Can evidence of the artistic process be discovered and utilized in these administrative records? This article examines the records of Alberta Ballet, housed at the Provincial Archives of Alberta, to identify intersections between creation and administration. DOI: 10.3138/ctr.156.007<http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/r6125627q48j6306/>
Is There an Archivist in the Sim?: Literacy as Agency in a Postpositivist, Mixed Media Virtual Theatre Archive<http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/e11571mn8m204751/>
Jennifer Roberts-Smith, Kathryn Harvey, Shawn DeSouza-Coelho, et al.
As non-specialist researchers gain increasingly direct online access to digital and digitized theatre archives, archivists can no longer expect to be able to provide essential, post-positivist archival literacy training to individual researchers on a case-by-case basis. Archival literacy training must now be embedded directly into the design archives' online interfaces. In this paper, we make some preliminary suggestions about how the University of Guelph's L. W. Conolly Archive of Canadian Theatre may approach this challenge using the Simulated Environment for Theatre (SET) as a platform for interacting with its holdings. We illustrate our argument with artefacts related to Judith Thompson's White Biting Dog. DOI: 10.3138/ctr.156.008<http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/e11571mn8m204751/>
Archival Collaborations: Using Theatre Archives to Teach Canadian Theatre History and Archival Literacy<http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/y7742490840qq829/>
Roberta Barker, Creighton Barrett, Doyle Lahey
How can theatre archives be effectively utilized to teach about theatre? What opportunities do they pose for teaching in other disciplines? What considerations must archives staff make when providing access to theatre archives? This article aims to address such questions by providing an overview of an ongoing collaboration at Dalhousie University. For the past several years, the Dalhousie University Archives has collaborated with Dr. Roberta Barker of the Dalhousie Theatre Department on a course project in which students research production records from the Neptune Theatre fonds. This article outlines the pedagogical goals of the assignment and touches upon the challenges associated with using theatre archives to facilitate undergraduate learning and teaching. It also looks at another recent course project that used Neptune Theatre's archives to teach core archival concepts to graduate students in the Dalhousie School of Information Management. In the process, it considers how the unique characteristics of theatre archives can enable multidisciplinary collaborations between archivists and university faculty. DOI: 10.3138/ctr.156.009<http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/y7742490840qq829/>
To Carry the Archive with Us: The Multi-Burdened Crawls of William Pope.L and Didier Morelli<http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/003835711pnr1626/>
T. Nikki Cesare Schotzko
In 1978, performance artist William Pope.L began his inaugural crawl through New York City's Times Square, challenging the "urban power" that verticality, literally and metaphorically, bestows. On 11 November 2011, Didier Morelli-as part of his presentation on William Pope.L for the graduate course I was then teaching, The History of Solo Performance-crawled two kilometers from his east-side apartment to the University of Toronto's Centre for Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies at the corner of St. George and College Streets. Morelli wore a Québec Nordiques hockey jersey and in Québécois French recited the excerpt from Roch Carrier's "Le chandail de hockey" quoted on the Canadian five-dollar bill. He carried with him throughout the crawl a photocopied photograph of William Pope.L. Morelli's (re)performance, which I (re)trace through my own self-conscious path as professor and audience, serving a particularly performative archiving function that makes evident the intrinsic relationship between affect and pedagogy. DOI: 10.3138/ctr.156.010<http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/003835711pnr1626/>
The Theatre and the Archives: TCDS Presents<http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/q534659738w3u51j/>
Sharon Reid
In June 2012, theatre enthusiasts and archivists united to create TCDS Presents, a multi-media comic revue of the history of the Trinity College Dramatic Society. The production provoked a strong reaction from the audience, many of whom had been witnesses to the original events. The vehement response to our comedic docu-drama raised questions about the nature of participation by non-professionals in acts of public remembrance. In this study, theatrical interpretation of archival material is posited as a means to deepen our understanding of the nature of the archives, our assumptions and relationships to both the personnel and the artefacts. At a time in our history when we seem to be turning ever-more frequently toward digitizing our historical records, the theatre presents a dynamic, immediate, visceral alternative to the computer screen, one in which archives can invite audiences to engage directly with the collection, interpretation, and ultimately preservation of our shared past. DOI: 10.3138/ctr.156.011<http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/q534659738w3u51j/>
Script
"Distract parcels in combined sums": The Stratford Festival Archives' Stage-Managerial Collections<http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/h0405272470822w5/>
The Stratford Festival Archives houses the largest single-theatre archive in the world, spanning more than sixty years of performing history, artefacts, production materials, and ephemera. Uniquely, the Stratford Archives also hosts a growing collection of palimpsestic composite scripts, master texts which feature every dramaturgical cut in the Festival's history layered together. Through consideration of high-quality scans of several Festival prompt-books, composite scripts, and archive features, this paper draws conclusions on the benefits and drawbacks of such an approach to stage-managerial material and examines the breadth of the prompt-book and composite script collection at the Stratford Festival Archives, with particular focus on the industry of archivist Nora Polley. Finally, this paper considers the question of copy-text compilation and the pitfalls in neglecting primary source materials with examples of prompt-books constructed from editorially moderated paperback editions rather than Quarto-Folio copy texts. DOI: 10.3138/ctr.156.012<http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/h0405272470822w5/>
Views and Reviews<http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/h658454321358r47/>
DOI: 10.3138/ctr.156.013<http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/h658454321358r47/>

Canadian Theatre Review is the major magazine of record for Canadian theatre. It is committed to excellence in the critical analysis and innovative coverage of current developments in Canadian theatre, to advocating new issues and artists, and to publishing at least one significant new playscript per issue. The editorial board is committed to CTR's practice of theme issues that present multi-faceted and in-depth examinations of the emerging issues of the day and to expanding the practice of criticism in Canadian theatre and to the development of new voices.
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