Canadian Drama Courses in Canada

[Day, Moira]

Hi Heather,

Thanks for chiming in. I’m aware of both those documents - and of course, of our historic significance as the first Drama Department in the British Commonwealth. Mostly because of Jones, we were designated as one of the models for future drama training in Canada.

I’ve gone through the curricula from the start of the department - and as far as I can tell, I taught the first formal or full Canadian Theatre course in the department over 1992-93. But that doesn’t mean that the job wasn’t getting done here much earlier in different ways. The department staged its first Canadian play, *Eros at Breakfast*, on the MainStage in spring 1948; offered Robert Gard’s *Raisin' the Devil* for the 1949 spring tour, and did a bill of 6 new Canadian plays in spring 1962. Saskatchewan also offered one of the first MA programs in Drama in the country (1965-66) and three of the first four theses produced between 1967-71 were on Canadian Theatre topics. During the couple of years that Patrick O’Neill was here before moving on to Atlantic Canada, he also had students doing research projects on the history of the early Saskatoon theatre as part of the general Theatre History classes he was teaching here. As is often the case in small departments though, these projects rested on the initiative of a few dedicated, visionary, hardworking souls - and when these stalwart individuals retired or moved on - the projects often faltered as well.

As was probably the case in many drama departments of our kind, the strongest and most consistent influence our department had on the Canadian theatre can be measured in terms of the people who went on to careers in the educational and professional theatre in Canada.

Moira
On Feb 24, 2016, at 7:58 AM, Heather Fitzsimmons Frey <heatherff at gmail.com<mailto:heatherff at gmail.com>> wrote:

Hello Moira and All!

Thanks for this interesting discussion.  I happened to be at Robart's yesterday and picked up a copy of a book called Canadian School Plays (1948), edited by Emrys Maldwyn Jones, Professor of Drama, University of Saskatchewan.  It includes scripts by such playwriting powerhouses as Elsie Park Gowan and Gwen Pharis Ringwood.  In light of this discussion, I googled Jones this morning.  Apparently he has a 1946 book called The University's Duty Towards Canadian Drama.  I haven't seen it, but I wonder if Jones taught the first courses in Canadian Drama?  I also found this bio at the University of Saskatchewan site:
Biography:




Emrys Maldwyn Jones was born in Dowlais, Wales on 14 September 1905. His early education was in Edmonton, Alberta, including a B.A from the University of Alberta in 1931.



In the summer of 1928 Jones took a train north from Edmonton to the terminus at Waterways where he boarded a boat that would eventually take him north to the Mackenzie River Delta.



From 1931 to 1939, he taught high school in Edmonton. He returned to the University of Alberta in 1939 where he combined employment as a drama instructor with his graduate studies. He earned his MA in 1943 and spent the next two years studying at Cornell and Columbia universities on a Rockefeller Fellowship.



[Emrys M. Jones - Department of Drama]<http://scaa.usask.ca/gallery/northern/jones/images/EMJones_1945-73.jpg>
In 1945 Emrys Jones joined the faculty of the University of Saskatchewan as Professor and Head Department of Drama. He was the first full professor of drama to be appointed at a Commonwealth university. During his career Jones educated hundreds of students, directed dozens of plays, and advanced the dramatic arts on the national stage by founding the Canadian Theatre Centre in 1956. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (London) in 1971 and named Professor Emeritus of Drama in 1973.




Heather Fitzsimmons Frey, PhD

Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Toronto

NEW BOOK: Ignite: Illuminating Theatre for Young People (edited by Heather Fitzsimmons Frey) http://www.playwrightscanada.com/index.php/ignite-illuminating-theatre-for-young-people.html<http://www.cambridgescholars.com/theatre-and-learning>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://artsservices.uwaterloo.ca/pipermail/candrama/attachments/20160224/28a2ccb8/attachment.html>