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National Theatre School of Canada

November 28, 2023

The National Theatre School of Canada (NTS, French: École nationale de théâtre du Canada) is a private institution of professional theatre studies in Montreal, Quebec. Established in 1960, the NTS receives its principal funding from grants awarded by the Government of Canada and from cultural ministries in each of the provinces, with added financial support from private and corporate donors. it has offered incomparable training to actors, directors, playwrights, set and costume designers and production specialists to work in professional theatre.

National Theatre School of Canada
École nationale de théâtre du Canada
TypeTheatre school
Established1960
AffiliationColleges and Institutes Canada
CEOGideon Arthurs
Students169 (in 2016-17 year)
Location
Montreal
,
Quebec
,
Canada
CampusUrban
Websitewww.ent-nts.ca

Buildings and features edit

 
The Monument-National in 2008

The National Theatre School occupies a historic landmark in Montreal, the Monument-National on Saint Lawrence Boulevard, as well as a building in The Plateau district, at the corner of Saint Denis Street and Laurier Street.

Monument-National edit

Main article: Monument-National

The campus of the National Theatre School stretches all the way to the Monument-National in the core of downtown Montreal. This hundred-year-old theatre, owned and operated by the NTS, has been classified as a heritage building. Recently restored and renovated, the Monument-National is composed of three performance halls.

Michel and Suria Saint-Denis Pavilion edit

Once a juvenile courthouse, the school’s main home, the Michel and Suria Saint-Denis Pavilion, sits on the border between the Plateau Mont-Royal and Mile End neighbourhoods.

The Pavilion houses rehearsal halls, classrooms (including specially converted spaces for voice, dance, movement, set and costume design and writing), the André-Pagé Studio (a flexible studio space with a 150-seat capacity), the Pauline McGibbon Studio (80-seat capacity), a small costume shop, a sound studio, a lighting laboratory, a projection room, a computer room, a school supplies store, a cafeteria, and a common space equipped with refrigerators and microwaves[citation needed] for the students.

The Bleviss Family Library edit

The Pavilion also houses Canada's largest collection of theatre related books and manuscripts, both published and unpublished, and audio visual materials available in both official languages. This outstanding collection was founded by Alan Bleviss, a graduate of NTS.[1]

History edit

The notion of a national theatre school first received focused attention as an indirect result of the "Massey Report" (the report of the Massey-Levesque Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences of 1951).[2] Robertson Davies, writing the section of the report devoted to theatre, complained that "facilities for advanced training in the arts of the theatre are non-existent in Canada," and that, consequently, "young actors, producers and technicians [...] must leave the country for advanced training, and only rarely return." Notwithstanding widespread acknowledgement of the validity of Davies' complaint, not until 1958-59 was a committee of 16 of the leading members of the Canadian theatrical community formed through the Canadian Theatre Centre / Centre du théâtre Canadien (CTC). Actor and CBC television producer, David Gardner chaired the committee that included Colonel Yves Bourassa, Donald Davis, Jean Gascon, Gratien Gélinas, Michael Langham, Pauline McGibbon, Mavor Moore, David Onley, Tom Patterson, Jean Pelletier, Jean-Louis Roux, Roy Stewart, Powys Thomas, Vincent Tovell and Herbert Whittaker. Director-teacher Michel Saint-Denis was brought in from Britain to act as senior advisor. He was a leading authority on theatre training who had created the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and later co-founded the Juilliard School Drama Division in New York City.

In fact, French-born Saint-Denis had what many[who?] regarded as an ideal background to offer guidance to Canada's national co-lingual theatre school project (he gives details of his employment as a consultant for this project, and the involvement of his wife Suria, in their co-authored book "Training for the Theatre: Premises and Promises").[3] In the 1920s, he worked closely with his uncle, the remarkable French theatre director Jacques Copeau, to revolutionize theatrical practice and training in France through the Vieux-Colombier troupe. In the 1930s, Saint-Denis moved to London, England, where he became one of the most highly regarded stage directors of the decade, being responsible for a series of landmark productions featuring such stars of the British stage as John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier and Alec Guinness.

The CTC committee had been formed with a mandate to create a "truly bilingual school, located in Toronto." The committee decided that Montréal, as a more "truly bilingual" city, was a better location and the National Theatre School of Canada / École nationale de théâtre du Canada officially opened on 2 Nov 1960 in premises owned by the Canadian Legion at 1191 Mountain Street in Montréal. The school changed locations several times over the next decade until in 1970 it settled at 5030 rue Saint-Denis. Beginning in 1965, it also rented performing space in the Monument-National, which it purchased outright in 1978. This historic theatre (built 1891-94) was then in a dilapidated state; a major renovation in the early 1990s restored the beauty of the old Monument-National and introduced many modernizations, resulting in 2 theatres- the 804-seat Ludger-Duvernay theatre and a smaller flexible Studio theatre, which seats as many as 180 spectators.

Founding principals, Jean Gascon was the first Director-General (Principal) at the NTS and head of the school's Francophone programs while Powys Thomas headed up the English programming section. James de Beaujeu Domville took over the role of Director-General from 1964 until 1968.[4]

In 1960, the first year of its operation, the National Theatre School only offered classes in acting for its Francophone and English students. They had been selected from hundreds of auditions conducted in every province and territory across the country to participate in thirty months of rigorous training conducted over three years, with eight months annually spent in Montreal and the two summer months in Stratford, Ontario, where students were afforded access to the facilities and professional influences of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. In 1961, a bilingual production program was inaugurated. In 1978, a French program in playwriting was added to the French acting section of the school and in 1980, an equivalent English playwriting program was added to its English acting section. Directing has been the most changeable program at the school. Beginning in the early 1980s, various attempts were made to create programs in English and French for the instruction of directing; but for both financial and pedagogical reasons, these programs have not always succeeded, and the English and French sections of the school have apparently abandoned the pursuit of synchronized objectives in this area. Indeed, while the integration of anglophone and francophone students has been fairly thorough in the production program, in other programs it has been more usual to see the English and French sections of the school operating autonomously.

While the history of the National Theatre School has generally been prestigious, the institution has not been without controversy. For example, in 1968, which was dubbed "the year of the barricades" because of the many student protests that swept across Europe and North America, the National Theatre School experienced its own uprising. The 8 graduating acting students in the French section resigned en masse in protest against the school's disregard of Québécois playwrights, particularly as exemplified in statements made by the director of the French acting section, André Muller. As a result of the protest, the school pointedly reversed its neglect of Québécois plays. In 1971, Muller's successor, André Pagé, had the students perform a selection of work from various Québécois writers and began a program of commissioning work for the school from prominent Québécois playwrights. In 1998, the 8 students who had resigned were sent a letter from the school declaring that they had been reinstated as alumni and recognizing that their protest had resulted in progressive change in school policy.[citation needed]

Programs edit

It offers professional training in all the major theatre arts in both English and French, making it one of the only co-lingual theatre schools in the world. The programs include Acting, Directing, Production, Playwriting and Scenography.

Intake edit

Students are auditioned and/or interviewed from all across the country, and NTS accepts international students as well. Placements at the school are highly competitive; for example, the Acting program auditions around six hundred students annually but only twelve are accepted.[citation needed]

Notable alumni edit

Further information: Category:National Theatre School of Canada alumni

The National Theatre School typically graduates approx. 60 students a year from its combined programs and English and French sections, and its alumni include Canada's prominent theatre artists with an influence that extends deep into the US and European worlds of theatre, television and film.

The following is a list of notable students and the year they graduated.[5]

References edit

Saint-Denis, Michel (1982) Training for the Theatre: Premises & Promises. (Suria Saint-Denis, ed.) New York: Theatre Arts Books.

  1. ^ "Bleviss Family Library". NTS. Retrieved June 27, 2017.
  2. ^ "Massey Report". Canadian Adaptations of Shakespeare. Retrieved June 27, 2017.
  3. ^ "Premises and Promises by Michel & Suria Saint Denis">. New York: \Theatre Arts Books; London:Heinemann, ©1982. OCLC 9194850.
  4. ^ "Domville, James de Beaujeu, 1933-". Library and Archives Canada. Archived from the original on January 1, 2013. Retrieved February 10, 2010.
  5. ^ . National Theatre School of Canada. Archived from the original on April 15, 2012. Retrieved February 20, 2012.
  6. ^ "Ishan Davé".
  7. ^ "Marilyn Castonguay a le vent dans les voiles". Le Journal de Montréal, September 5, 2012.
  8. ^ "Biography".
  9. ^ Genzlinger, Neil (26 October 2021). "Martha Henry, Indefatigable Stage Actress, Dies at 83". The New York Times.
  10. ^ DiRaddo, Christopher (Spring 2006). . NTS Magazine. Archived from the original on August 27, 2011. Retrieved February 20, 2012.
  11. ^ "Biographie".

External links edit

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to National Theatre School of Canada.
  • National Theatre School of Canada website
  • Text of the Massey Commission's report

45°30′33″N 73°33′45″W / 45.5091°N 73.5625°W / 45.5091; -73.5625

November 28, 2023
national, theatre, school, canada, this, article, multiple, issues, please, help, improve, discuss, these, issues, talk, page, learn, when, remove, these, template, messages, this, article, needs, additional, citations, verification, please, help, improve, thi. This article has multiple issues Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page Learn how and when to remove these template messages This article needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources National Theatre School of Canada news newspapers books scholar JSTOR January 2010 Learn how and when to remove this template message This article contains content that is written like an advertisement Please help improve it by removing promotional content and inappropriate external links and by adding encyclopedic content written from a neutral point of view February 2012 Learn how and when to remove this template message Learn how and when to remove this template message The National Theatre School of Canada NTS French Ecole nationale de theatre du Canada is a private institution of professional theatre studies in Montreal Quebec Established in 1960 the NTS receives its principal funding from grants awarded by the Government of Canada and from cultural ministries in each of the provinces with added financial support from private and corporate donors it has offered incomparable training to actors directors playwrights set and costume designers and production specialists to work in professional theatre National Theatre School of CanadaEcole nationale de theatre du CanadaTypeTheatre schoolEstablished1960AffiliationColleges and Institutes CanadaCEOGideon ArthursStudents169 in 2016 17 year LocationMontreal Quebec CanadaCampusUrbanWebsitewww wbr ent nts wbr ca Contents 1 Buildings and features 1 1 Monument National 1 2 Michel and Suria Saint Denis Pavilion 1 2 1 The Bleviss Family Library 2 History 3 Programs 4 Intake 5 Notable alumni 6 References 7 External linksBuildings and features edit nbsp The Monument National in 2008The National Theatre School occupies a historic landmark in Montreal the Monument National on Saint Lawrence Boulevard as well as a building in The Plateau district at the corner of Saint Denis Street and Laurier Street Monument National edit Main article Monument National The campus of the National Theatre School stretches all the way to the Monument National in the core of downtown Montreal This hundred year old theatre owned and operated by the NTS has been classified as a heritage building Recently restored and renovated the Monument National is composed of three performance halls Michel and Suria Saint Denis Pavilion edit Once a juvenile courthouse the school s main home the Michel and Suria Saint Denis Pavilion sits on the border between the Plateau Mont Royal and Mile End neighbourhoods The Pavilion houses rehearsal halls classrooms including specially converted spaces for voice dance movement set and costume design and writing the Andre Page Studio a flexible studio space with a 150 seat capacity the Pauline McGibbon Studio 80 seat capacity a small costume shop a sound studio a lighting laboratory a projection room a computer room a school supplies store a cafeteria and a common space equipped with refrigerators and microwaves citation needed for the students The Bleviss Family Library edit The Pavilion also houses Canada s largest collection of theatre related books and manuscripts both published and unpublished and audio visual materials available in both official languages This outstanding collection was founded by Alan Bleviss a graduate of NTS 1 History editThe notion of a national theatre school first received focused attention as an indirect result of the Massey Report the report of the Massey Levesque Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts Letters and Sciences of 1951 2 Robertson Davies writing the section of the report devoted to theatre complained that facilities for advanced training in the arts of the theatre are non existent in Canada and that consequently young actors producers and technicians must leave the country for advanced training and only rarely return Notwithstanding widespread acknowledgement of the validity of Davies complaint not until 1958 59 was a committee of 16 of the leading members of the Canadian theatrical community formed through the Canadian Theatre Centre Centre du theatre Canadien CTC Actor and CBC television producer David Gardner chaired the committee that included Colonel Yves Bourassa Donald Davis Jean Gascon Gratien Gelinas Michael Langham Pauline McGibbon Mavor Moore David Onley Tom Patterson Jean Pelletier Jean Louis Roux Roy Stewart Powys Thomas Vincent Tovell and Herbert Whittaker Director teacher Michel Saint Denis was brought in from Britain to act as senior advisor He was a leading authority on theatre training who had created the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and later co founded the Juilliard School Drama Division in New York City In fact French born Saint Denis had what many who regarded as an ideal background to offer guidance to Canada s national co lingual theatre school project he gives details of his employment as a consultant for this project and the involvement of his wife Suria in their co authored book Training for the Theatre Premises and Promises 3 In the 1920s he worked closely with his uncle the remarkable French theatre director Jacques Copeau to revolutionize theatrical practice and training in France through the Vieux Colombier troupe In the 1930s Saint Denis moved to London England where he became one of the most highly regarded stage directors of the decade being responsible for a series of landmark productions featuring such stars of the British stage as John Gielgud Laurence Olivier and Alec Guinness The CTC committee had been formed with a mandate to create a truly bilingual school located in Toronto The committee decided that Montreal as a more truly bilingual city was a better location and the National Theatre School of Canada Ecole nationale de theatre du Canada officially opened on 2 Nov 1960 in premises owned by the Canadian Legion at 1191 Mountain Street in Montreal The school changed locations several times over the next decade until in 1970 it settled at 5030 rue Saint Denis Beginning in 1965 it also rented performing space in the Monument National which it purchased outright in 1978 This historic theatre built 1891 94 was then in a dilapidated state a major renovation in the early 1990s restored the beauty of the old Monument National and introduced many modernizations resulting in 2 theatres the 804 seat Ludger Duvernay theatre and a smaller flexible Studio theatre which seats as many as 180 spectators Founding principals Jean Gascon was the first Director General Principal at the NTS and head of the school s Francophone programs while Powys Thomas headed up the English programming section James de Beaujeu Domville took over the role of Director General from 1964 until 1968 4 In 1960 the first year of its operation the National Theatre School only offered classes in acting for its Francophone and English students They had been selected from hundreds of auditions conducted in every province and territory across the country to participate in thirty months of rigorous training conducted over three years with eight months annually spent in Montreal and the two summer months in Stratford Ontario where students were afforded access to the facilities and professional influences of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival In 1961 a bilingual production program was inaugurated In 1978 a French program in playwriting was added to the French acting section of the school and in 1980 an equivalent English playwriting program was added to its English acting section Directing has been the most changeable program at the school Beginning in the early 1980s various attempts were made to create programs in English and French for the instruction of directing but for both financial and pedagogical reasons these programs have not always succeeded and the English and French sections of the school have apparently abandoned the pursuit of synchronized objectives in this area Indeed while the integration of anglophone and francophone students has been fairly thorough in the production program in other programs it has been more usual to see the English and French sections of the school operating autonomously While the history of the National Theatre School has generally been prestigious the institution has not been without controversy For example in 1968 which was dubbed the year of the barricades because of the many student protests that swept across Europe and North America the National Theatre School experienced its own uprising The 8 graduating acting students in the French section resigned en masse in protest against the school s disregard of Quebecois playwrights particularly as exemplified in statements made by the director of the French acting section Andre Muller As a result of the protest the school pointedly reversed its neglect of Quebecois plays In 1971 Muller s successor Andre Page had the students perform a selection of work from various Quebecois writers and began a program of commissioning work for the school from prominent Quebecois playwrights In 1998 the 8 students who had resigned were sent a letter from the school declaring that they had been reinstated as alumni and recognizing that their protest had resulted in progressive change in school policy citation needed Programs editIt offers professional training in all the major theatre arts in both English and French making it one of the only co lingual theatre schools in the world The programs include Acting Directing Production Playwriting and Scenography Intake editStudents are auditioned and or interviewed from all across the country and NTS accepts international students as well Placements at the school are highly competitive for example the Acting program auditions around six hundred students annually but only twelve are accepted citation needed Notable alumni editFurther information Category National Theatre School of Canada alumni The National Theatre School typically graduates approx 60 students a year from its combined programs and English and French sections and its alumni include Canada s prominent theatre artists with an influence that extends deep into the US and European worlds of theatre television and film The following is a list of notable students and the year they graduated 5 Salvatore Antonio 1998 Actor playwright Marc Bendavid 2004 Actor Alan Bleviss 1966 Actor director founder Bleviss Family Library Ishan Dave 2011 Actor 6 Blair Brown 1969 Actress Altered States The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd Fringe Marilyn Castonguay Actor 7 Peter Cullen 1963 Actor Sean Devine 1992 Actor playwright and politician Roy Dupuis 1986 Actor Jesse Aaron Dwyre 2003 Actor Jake Epstein 2008 Actor Colm Feore 1980 Actor Gary Files 1964 Actor Writer Director Colin Fox Actor Luba Goy 1969 Comedian Royal Canadian Air Farce Suzanne Grossmann 1963 Actress Writer Lori Hallier 1980 Actress Elizabeth Hanna 1977 Voice Actor and speech language pathologist Paul Hecht 1963 Actor Martha Henry 1962 Actress and director first graduate 8 9 Allan Hawco 2000 Actor Writer Producer Republic of Doyle Gascon Thomas Award winner Sheila Heti 1997 Writer Michael Hogan 1947 Actor Stephen Joffe 2012 Actor singer John Juliani 1964 Director actor Luke Kirby 2000 Actor The Marvelous Mrs Maisel Heath Lamberts 1963 Actor Christian Lapointe 2005 Actor writer director Diana Leblanc 1963 Actress and director Ann Marie MacDonald 1980 Actress playwright novelist teacher and broadcast hostess Anita Majumdar 2004 Actress and playwright 10 Kari Matchett 1993 Actress Power Play William Bill Millerd 1968 Director producer Artistic Director of The Arts Club Theatre Company Vancouver Hannah Moscovitch 2001 Playwright East of Berlin Wajdi Mouawad 1991 Actor writer director artistic director of National Arts Centre French Theatre Sandra Oh 1993 Actress Grey s Anatomy Killing Eve Golden Globe and Gascon Thomas Award winner Peter Oldring 1996 Actor Blue Collar TV The Joe Blow Show David Paquet 1978 Playwright Lucy Peacock 1983 Actress Stratford Shakespeare Festival 11 Cara Pifko 1994 Actress This is Wonderland Sean Power 1992 Actor Lead Balloon Amy Price Francis 1988 Actress Francine Racette 1966 actress Noah Reid 2008 Actor Schitt s Creek Donnelly Rhodes 1963 Actor August Schellenberg Actor Coralee Elliott Testar 1963 Screenwriter The Little Kidnappers City Boy Caddie Woodlawn A Girl of the Limberlost and other works Judith Thompson 1979 Playwright Perfect Pie Alicia Thorgrimsson 1996 Actor Darrell Wasyk 1979 Director filmmaker H Gina Wilkinson 1979 Actress Kari Lynn Winters 1994 Children s author Jeffrey and Sloth literacy researcherReferences editSaint Denis Michel 1982 Training for the Theatre Premises amp Promises Suria Saint Denis ed New York Theatre Arts Books Bleviss Family Library NTS Retrieved June 27 2017 Massey Report Canadian Adaptations of Shakespeare Retrieved June 27 2017 Premises and Promises by Michel amp Suria Saint Denis gt New York Theatre Arts Books London Heinemann c 1982 OCLC 9194850 Domville James de Beaujeu 1933 Library and Archives Canada Archived from the original on January 1 2013 Retrieved February 10 2010 Alumni National Theatre School of Canada Archived from the original on April 15 2012 Retrieved February 20 2012 Ishan Dave Marilyn Castonguay a le vent dans les voiles Le Journal de Montreal September 5 2012 Biography Genzlinger Neil 26 October 2021 Martha Henry Indefatigable Stage Actress Dies at 83 The New York Times DiRaddo Christopher Spring 2006 Anita Majumdar Anita Unveiled NTS Magazine Archived from the original on August 27 2011 Retrieved February 20 2012 Biographie External links edit nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to National Theatre School of Canada National Theatre School of Canada website Text of the Massey Commission s report 45 30 33 N 73 33 45 W 45 5091 N 73 5625 W 45 5091 73 5625 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title National Theatre School of Canada amp oldid 1186863632, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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