1. For discussions of the development of theatre in Canada, see the following: Various subject entries in The Oxford Companion to Canadian Theatre, edited by Benson, Eugene and Conolly, L. W. (Toronto: Oxford, 1989)Google Scholar; Brookes, Chris, A Public Nuisance: A History of the Mummers Troupe (St. John's: Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1988)Google Scholar; Filewod, Alan, Collective Encounters: Documentary Theatre in English Canada (Toronto/Buffalo/London: University of Toronto Press, 1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Johnston, Denis, Up the Mainstream: The Rise of Toronto's Alternative Theatres (Toronto/Buffalo/London: University of Toronto Press, 1991)Google Scholar: Usmiani, Renate, Second Stage:The Alternative Theatre Movement in Canada (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1983)Google Scholar; Wagner, Anton, ed., Contemporary Canadian Theatre: New World Visions (Toronto: Simon and Pierre, 1985).Google Scholar

2. For a discussion of the term ‘national’ in the context of the search for a ‘national’ theatre, see Salter, Denis, ‘The Idea of a National Theatre’, in Canadian Canons: Essays in Literary Value, ed. Lecker, Robert (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), pp. 71–90.Google Scholar

3. See Filewod, Alan, Collective EncountersGoogle Scholar and Brookes, Chris, A Public Nuisance.Google Scholar Although there was no main stream in the sense of a ‘regional’ theatre, Newfoundland did have activity with mainstream values, for example in the 1950s London Theatre Company and in various DDF-oriented amateur groups.

4. The ‘regional’ theatres are seen to begin with the establishment in 1958–9 of the Manitoba Arts Centre with a tripartite mandate of ‘mainstage’ performances, outreach touring productions and audience development programmes aimed largely at young people. Over the next decade-and-a-half, a professional theatre loosely resembling the MTC was set up in each of the urban centres across the country.

5. Thomas, Powys, ‘On Being a Canadian Actor: Two Perspectives’, CTR 1 winter 1974:33.Google Scholar

6. The preponderance of foreign teachers prompted the federal government to legislate that Canadians or landed immigrants be given first opportunity at appointments.

7. In Canadian Literature (vol.62 no. 14, 1962)Google Scholar John Ball had published a list of 451 titles covering printed commentary about theatre performance between 1606 and 1959. There had been several short listings of plays in English by 1976 including an early compilation directed by Chris Johnston at Brock University, The Brock Bibliography of Published Canadian Stage Plays in English 1900–1972 (1972)Google Scholar and its First Supplement (1973).Google Scholar The first truly comprehensive play listing was The Brock Bibliography of Published Canadian Plays in English 1766–1978 (Toronto: Playwrights Press, 1980)Google Scholar compiled under the editorship of Anton Wagner.

8. The new bibliography is being published by ECW Press in Toronto and is scheduled for release in 1992.

9. Merrill Denison has traditionally been viewed as the first major playwright in twentieth-century English-Canada. His comment originally appeared in his article, ‘Nationalism and Drama’, in Bertram Brooker's Yearbook of the Arts in Canada, 1928–9 (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1929).Google Scholar Denison's remark has been cited many times.

10. Edwards, Murray D., A Stage in our Past: English-Language Theatre in Eastern Canada from the 1790s to 1914 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1968).Google Scholar This was an adaptation of his doctoral thesis at Columbia University.

11. See Sperdakos, Paula, ‘Dora Mavor Moore before the New Play Society’, Theatre History in Canada/Histoire du théâtre au Canada, vol. 10, No. 1 Spring 1989: 43–64.Google Scholar

12. I am even further implicated since I currently teach the Canadian theatre course at Toronto's Graduate Drama Centre. Again, in light of my criticism, I should report that the number of doctoral theses at the Centre, as well as the course enrolment, continues to increase.

13. Nunn, Robert, ‘The Meeting of Actuality and Theatricality in The Farm Show’, Canadian Drama/L'Art dramatique vol.8, No.1, 1982: 42–54.Google Scholar

14. Before the Brock Bibliography, the most authoritative reference tool on plays was Reginald Eyre Walters' On Canadian Literature, 1806–1960 (University of Toronto Press, 1966)Google Scholar, which was revised and enlarged in 1972. Both versions included plays. There were several other short lists available, such as W.S. Milne's Canadian Full-Length Plays in English (Ottawa, Dominion Drama Festival, 1964)Google Scholar and its Supplement (1966), but these were highly selective.

15. Dorothy Sedgwick, A Bibliography of English-Language Theatre and Drama in Canada 1800–1914 (Edmonton: Nineteenth Century Theatre Research, Occasional Publication, Number 1, 1979); O'Neill, Patrick, Canadian Plays—A Supplementary Checklist to 1945 (Halifax: Dalhousie University School of Library Science, 1978)Google Scholar and ‘Unpublished Canadian Plays Copy righted 1921–1937’, Canadian Drama/L'Art dramatique canadien vol.4 no. 1, 1978.Google Scholar

16. O–Neill, Patrick, Ph.D., Louisiana State, 1973Google Scholar; Aikens, James, Ph.D., University of Toronto, 1975.Google Scholar

17. Smith, Mary Elizabeth, Too Soon the Curtain Fell: A History of Theatre in Saint John 1789–1900, (Fredericton: Brunswick Press, 1981).Google Scholar

18. Plant, Richard, ‘Leaving Home: A Thematic Study of English Canadian Literature with Special Emphasis on Drama, 1606 to 1977’, Ph.D., University of Toronto, 1979.Google Scholar

19. From ‘An Editorial Viewpoint’, CTR vol.1 no.1 Winter 1974: 4. The editors' commentary went on: ‘If CTRis allowed to evolve (or, perhaps, devolve) into another “learned” journal… this publication won't deserve to exist’.

20. Canadian Drama/L'Art dramatique canadien, vol.1 no.1: 4.Google Scholar

21. For an enlightening study ofCanadian Theatre Review, see Filewod, Alan, ‘Undermining the Centre: The Canon According to CTR’, Theatre History in Canada/Histoire du théâtre au Canada, vol.11 no.2, Fall 1990: 178–85.Google Scholar

22. This ‘national’ representation is a much more complicated idea than my comments would imply. When the Stratford Festival was officially our ‘national’ theatre, it was to be resident at the new National Arts Centre in Ottawa for six months of the year and Stratford for six. At another stage of the plans, the NAC, heavily funded by federal funds, was to receive shows from the regions of Canada, and its company would tour shows. A theatre from sea unto sea.

23. See note 19.

24. Michael Tait's essay, ‘Playwrights in a Vacuum: English-Canadian Dramain the Nineteenth Century’, (Canadian Literature no. 16 Spring 1963: 3–18Google Scholar) was an often quoted assessment of Canadian plays. Covering a few works by three closet dramatists, Tait's article implied that all nineteenth-century English-Canadian drama was bad and separated from the theatre.

25. The other three volumes are: Canada's Lost Plays, Volume Two: Women Pioneers (1982)Google Scholar; Canada's Lost Plays, Volume Three: The Developing Mosaic (1980)Google Scholar; Canada's Lost Plays, Volume Four: Colonial Quebec: French-Canadian Drama, 1606 to 1966 (1985).Google Scholar All were published under the CTR imprint.

26. Wagner, Anton and Plant, Richard, ‘Introduclion: Reclaiming ihe Past’, Canada's Lost Plays, volume 1, Toronto: CTR, 1978: 4.Google Scholar

27. Usmiani, Renate, Second Stage:The Alternative Theatre Movement in Canada, (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1983).Google Scholar

28. Perkyns, Richard, Major Plays of the Canadian Theatre 1934–1984 (Toronto: Irwin, 1984)Google Scholar; Plant, Richard, The Penguin Bookof Modern Canadian Drama (Toronto: Penguin, 1984)Google Scholar; Wasserman, Jerry, Modern Canadian Plays (Vancouver: Talon Books, 1985).Google Scholar For excellent commentary on these anthologies, see Wallace, Robert, ‘Construcling a Canon:A Review Essay’ Theatre History in Canada/Histoire du Théâtre au Canada vol.10, NO.2, Fall 1989: 218–22Google Scholar and Knowles, Richard Paul, ‘Voices (off): Deconstructing the Modern English-Canadian Canon’ in Canadian Canons: Essays in Literary Value, ed. Lecker, Robert (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), pp. 91–111.Google Scholar

29. Wallace, Robert, Producing Marginality, (Saskatoon: Fifth House Publishers, 1990).Google Scholar

30. Rewa, Natalie, ‘Clichés of Ethnicity Subverted: Robert Lepage's La Trilogie des dragons’, Theatre History in Canada/Histoire du théâtre au Canada vol.11 no.2, Fall 1990: 148–61.Google Scholar

31. Jones, Heather, ‘Feminism and Nationalism in Domestic Melodrama: Gender, Genre, and Canadian Identity’, Essays in Theatre vol. 8 no. 1 11 1989: 5–14Google Scholar, and ‘Main Course or Mere Confection: Gender Issues in Historical and Dramatic Representations of Laura Secord’, Canadian Literature (forthcoming).