The thesis covers the history of the Vancouver Little
Theatre Association (VLTA), one of the oldest amateur theatre
groups in Canada. The subject was chosen partly because of
the shortage of informative papers written on the histories of
amateur theatre in Vancouver. As there has been very little
written on this subject, the majority of the research was done
with primary sources, most of which were in the VLTA archival
collection at the City of Vancouver Archives.
The VLTA was founded in 1921 by a group of people
inspired by the art theatre movement in Europe. The
Association proved to be very popular from its inception, and
was able to buy a theatre building by its third season. The
building was its home base until 1978. The Depression at the
end of the 1920s dramatically affected the VLTA, and the
company, once financially successful and widely accepted, lost
much of its stability and following. From then on, most of
the history of the VLTA is a struggle for survival. During
the Second World War, the Association helped with the war
effort, either by raising money for war charities or by giving
performances for servicemen. At the end of the war,
professional theatre began to emerge in Vancouver, and the
VLTA had much competition. This early professionalism led to
the building of Vancouver’s civic theatres in the late 1950s and early 1960s, as well as the founding of smaller,
alternative, professional theatre companies of the 1970s. The
Little Theatre found that it could not compete with these new
movements. The Association’s position in the Vancouver theatre
scene was forced to change.
The Introduction presents a brief overview of the
theatrical ongoings in Vancouver before the inception of VLTA,
as well as the reasons behind the creation of the Little
Theatre. Chapters Two to Five cover the main part of VLTA’s
history, from its inception in 1921 to the selling of the York
Theatre building in 1978. Chapter Six brings up to date the
rest of VLTA’s history and discusses whether the VLTA
succeeded in its original mandates. It also considers why
VLTA remained amateur, while other little theatres in Canada
turned professional. The thesis will cover the internal
workings of VLTA as a company, and its position in the
Vancouver Theatre scene in comparison to other theatrical
happenings in the city.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/3381 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Nesbitt, Carol Dell |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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