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The Canadian popular theatre movement's refusal to accept one of the key binary oppositions that organizes Euroamerican theatre practice, the split between community-based and professional theatre, makes it a particularly interesting subject of inquiry for theatre scholars. This dissertation develops a methodology for analyzing this movement by approaching theatre, not as a unified institution or a series of texts, but as a mode of cognition that can overcome another of the basic binary oppositions of modern Euroamerican thought, the opposition between mind and body. Following an introductory chapter that situates the Canadian popular theatre movement in the context of recent Canadian theatre history and of other popular theatre movements around the world, a theoretical chapter lays the foundation for this methodology by exploring such key terms as "community," "professional," and "theatrical." It suggests that theatre is a particularly appropriate cognitive tool for building participatory community in heterogeneous social milieus. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 analyze three stages in the popular theatre process in these terms. Chapter 3 looks at how methods of organizing community workshops put in place particular forms of community. Chapter 4 explores the ways in which the dramaturgic structures of plays created by Headlines Theatre, the Theatre Parminou, and Red Roots Community Theatre are formed both by their creation processes and by their analyses of the problems in the dominant public spheres of the larger society. Chapter 5 looks at the specific contribution professional theatre workers make in focusing audience attention on key elements in community participants' stories. The dissertation concludes by suggesting that popular theatre events can be most fairly evaluated by looking at their contribution to the creation of new categories of thought through which we might publicly discuss and enact truly participatory communities.