AT
  • 2018/19 Season
    • The Importance of Being Earnest
    • Fireworks Festival 2018 >
      • The Pigeon
      • Moving On
      • Animal
    • Top Girls
    • New Ideas Festival 2019 >
      • NIF 2019 - WEEK 1
      • NIF 2019 - WEEK 2
      • NIF 2019 - WEEK 3
    • Impressionism
    • Full Season 2018/19
  • OPPORTUNITIES
    • Actors
    • Directors
    • Playwrights
    • Production
  • TICKETS
  • RENTALS
  • INFORMATION
    • Contact
    • About Us
    • Blog
    • News - 100 Year Open House 2018
    • Safe & Respectful
    • Previous Seasons >
      • 100th Anniversary >
        • Thirteen Hands
        • FireWorks 2017 >
          • This Will Be Our Last Transmission
          • Surrender, Dorothy
          • GASH
        • Omission
        • New Ideas Fest 2018 >
          • 2018 Week 1
          • 2018 Week 2
          • 2018 Week 3
          • 2018 Reading Series
        • Queen Marie
      • 2016/17 Season >
        • THIS
        • FireWorks 2016 >
          • The Creases In My Sari
          • Inked Heart
          • Motherland
        • The Gut Girls
        • New Ideas Festival 2017 >
          • 2017 Week 1
          • 2017 Week 2
          • 2017 Week 3
        • The Clean House
      • 2015/16 Season >
        • Antigone
        • FireWorks >
          • Divine Wrecks
          • Cottage Radio
          • Radical
          • Playwright Intensive
        • Stepping Out
        • New Ideas Festival 2016 >
          • NIF Week 1
          • NIF Week 2
          • NIF Week 3
        • August: Osage County
      • 2014/15 Season >
        • Escape From Happiness
        • FireWorks 2014 >
          • Burying Toni
          • You Have To Earn It
          • Playwrights Intensive
        • Blood Relations
        • New Ideas Festival 2015 >
          • NIF Week One
          • NIF Week Two
          • NIF Week Three
        • I am Marguerite
  • MEMBERSHIP
    • Become a Member
    • Members Only
  • SUPPORT US

About Alumnae Theatre Company

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The Alumnae Theatre Company is dedicated to the production of adventurous theatre not readily seen elsewhere and to skill development of women in theatre. We seek to be reflective of the diversity of Toronto on our stage and in our organization.

The company is based in a beautiful converted firehall, at Berkeley and Adelaide streets in Toronto, Ontario (Canada). The space contains two theatres, a rehearsal space, a workshop and a large wardrobe department. The Alumnae produces a full season each year consisting of three productions on the Mainstage, and two festival of new work in the Studio space, Fireworks and New Ideas Festival.

We are a club that consists of a membership of women volunteers who participate in all elements of the running of the theatre from acting, directing and writing to administration, artistic programming and management. Membership is open to all women. For more information, visit  
Membership.


HISTORY
Long before there was a Toronto theatre scene, there was the University Alumnae Dramatic Club. Founded in 1918 by women graduates of the University of Toronto at a time when Torontonians had little opportunity to see theatre of any kind, the club staged premieres of such plays as Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, T.S. Eliot’s The Family Reunion, Ionesco’s The Lesson, Pinter’s The Caretaker and Vaclav Havel’s Largo Desolato.

 During its 100 years of continuous production, the Alumnae Theatre has retained its original focus – to produce unusual plays of the past and present not readily seen elsewhere. The Alumnae has always been honoured for its challenging and unusual repertoire. “They are the pace-setters,” said Nathan Cohen in the early 60s, “for the entire Toronto theatrical community.” In 1995, Richard Ouzounian said, “The Alumnae Theatre... provides us with some of the best surprises in town: straightforward productions of excellent plays that no one else in the city seems to be doing.” Over the years the Alumnae has offered many outstanding works from the world’s dramatic literature, as well as original Canadian plays, and has achieved special recognition for its dramatized biographies, readings and literary collages.

 Some of the club’s more recent “firsts” include The Art of Dining by Tina Howe, The Love of the Nightingale by Timberlake Wertenbaker, and Thirteen Hands by Carol Shields.

No longer affiliated with the University, Alumnae’s membership has broadened to include the whole spectrum of Toronto’s communities. But it continues its original mandate to present the best in classic and contemporary plays and provide opportunities for all women in theatre. Over the years, many Canadian theatre artists have honed their skills on our stages, including Martin Hunter, R. H. Thomson, Molly Thom, Drew Carnwath, Shirley Barrie, Kelly Thornton, Mallory Gilbert, Sue Miner and Richard Easton.

For the first 30 years of its history, The University Alumnae Dramatic Club (as it was originally known) performed on the stage of Hart House Theatre. Starting in 1957, the club had a series of its own homes – a coach house on Huntley Street, a garage on Bedford Road, a converted synagogue on Cecil Street, and a church on Maplewood Avenue. 

The present home of the Alumnae Theatre, old Firehall No. 4, is an historic Toronto landmark built in 1900 on Berkeley Street. This handsome building was renovated and restored by the Alumnae in 1972, and contains a fully-equipped Mainstage theatre, an intimate Studio theatre, as well as workshop, a well-stocked wardrobe, rehearsal, backstage, lobby space and a benign ghost.

The Alumnae Theatre celebrated its centenary 2017/18 season, with a Gala Special Event: 100th Anniversary celebrations.


Alumnae Theatre also celebrated its 100th Birthday by holding an Open House in September 2018, featuring scenes from plays & demonstrations. To see photos of the event & to read more.

ALUMNAE THEATRE IN THE MEDIA 
GLOBE AND MAIL: Walking Toronto in the Footsteps of Ron Thom
CITY TV NEWS: Theatre in Small Spaces


ALUMNAE THEATRE HISTORY PROJECT 
Do you have a story to share about Alumnae? Photos, programmes, memories? Information or anecdotes about theatre in Toronto during the nineteen hundreds? If so please contact: Catherine Spence.
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ALUMNAE THEATRE COMPANY​
​70 Berkeley Street, Toronto 
416-364-4170

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C O N T A C T     U S
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​©2018, ​Alumnae Theatre Company 
  • 2018/19 Season
    • The Importance of Being Earnest
    • Fireworks Festival 2018 >
      • The Pigeon
      • Moving On
      • Animal
    • Top Girls
    • New Ideas Festival 2019 >
      • NIF 2019 - WEEK 1
      • NIF 2019 - WEEK 2
      • NIF 2019 - WEEK 3
    • Impressionism
    • Full Season 2018/19
  • OPPORTUNITIES
    • Actors
    • Directors
    • Playwrights
    • Production
  • TICKETS
  • RENTALS
  • INFORMATION
    • Contact
    • About Us
    • Blog
    • News - 100 Year Open House 2018
    • Safe & Respectful
    • Previous Seasons >
      • 100th Anniversary >
        • Thirteen Hands
        • FireWorks 2017 >
          • This Will Be Our Last Transmission
          • Surrender, Dorothy
          • GASH
        • Omission
        • New Ideas Fest 2018 >
          • 2018 Week 1
          • 2018 Week 2
          • 2018 Week 3
          • 2018 Reading Series
        • Queen Marie
      • 2016/17 Season >
        • THIS
        • FireWorks 2016 >
          • The Creases In My Sari
          • Inked Heart
          • Motherland
        • The Gut Girls
        • New Ideas Festival 2017 >
          • 2017 Week 1
          • 2017 Week 2
          • 2017 Week 3
        • The Clean House
      • 2015/16 Season >
        • Antigone
        • FireWorks >
          • Divine Wrecks
          • Cottage Radio
          • Radical
          • Playwright Intensive
        • Stepping Out
        • New Ideas Festival 2016 >
          • NIF Week 1
          • NIF Week 2
          • NIF Week 3
        • August: Osage County
      • 2014/15 Season >
        • Escape From Happiness
        • FireWorks 2014 >
          • Burying Toni
          • You Have To Earn It
          • Playwrights Intensive
        • Blood Relations
        • New Ideas Festival 2015 >
          • NIF Week One
          • NIF Week Two
          • NIF Week Three
        • I am Marguerite
  • MEMBERSHIP
    • Become a Member
    • Members Only
  • SUPPORT US