Up the Mainstream: The Rise of Toronto's Alternative Theatres

Anton Wagner is an assistant professor of Theatre at York University in
Toronto.

Up the Mainstream is the best cultural history published to date on
theatre in English Canada. Through his focus on the founding and
development of Toronto’s four leading alternative theatre
companies—Theatre Passe Muraille, Factory Theatre Lab, Tarragon
Theatre, and Toronto Free Theatre—Johnston traces how the alternative
theatres supplanted the regional theatres as the accepted model for
indigenous professional theatre in Canada.

Wonderfully well written and researched, this book highlights the
radical, nationalist, and mainstream phases of these companies between
1968 and the early 1980s and their achievements in play creation,
playwriting, directing, and audience development. An introductory
chapter provides a historical overview of Canadian theatre before 1968,
and concluding chapters analyze other prominent alternative companies
such as Studio Lab, Global Village, Creation 2, New Theatre, Open
Circle, Phoenix Theatre, and the NDWT company. Two dozen photographs of
the artistic leaders and companies discussed provide a rich visual
dimension of the artistic fermentation during this anti-establishment,
counterculture period. Johnston completes his study with a chronology of
important cultural events from 1951 to 1986, a list of plays produced
between 1968 and 1975, and a selected bibliography. Up the Mainstream
provides an immensely detailed and insightful record of the alternative
theatre movement from the 1960s to the 1980s. It also provides a
comprehensive framework for a better understanding of current Canadian
theatre and culture.