(Un)Making History?

Canadian Theatre History and the Canadian Theatre Review

Abstract

Canadian Theatre Review (CTR) at once describes history and makes it. Playhouses are often historicized as the single most important factor in determining the development of theatre in Canada (Canada 193; Frye 224; Rubin, “Creeping” 11), but CTR did for Canadian theatre history what playhouses did for performance. Journals like CTR (founded in 1974) and Theatre Research in Canada (which began as Theatre History in Canada, in 1980) as well as the Canadian Association of Theatre Research (established in 1976 as the Association for Canadian Theatre History) offered structural support and a home for scholars, artists, and students working on the field of Canadian theatre history. It is no accident that the so-called renaissance in Canadian theatre and Canadian theatre history in the 1970s coincided with the start of CTR in 1974. Any scholar, teacher, or artist interested in the history of Canadian theatre or a particular performance in Canada turns to CTR. But that’s not all: CTR’s issue themes, organizing principles, methodologies, case studies, and advertisements speak to historical periods in Canadian theatre. History is always already present when writing about theatre and performance because the very act of documenting a live performance piece is an act of historicizing. It is in this important vein that CTR continues to make history.