Staging a Legend: A History of Ottawa Little Theatre

Tamara Jones is Production Stage Manager/Operations Supervisor,
Entertainment Department, Paramount Canada’s Wonderland.

In Staging a Legend, Iris Winston celebrates the life and times of the
Ottawa Little Theatre, now in its 85th year, with a collection of
anecdotes, personal remembrances, and newspaper recollections.

The first home of the Dominion Drama Festival and an amateur theatre
company for all of its existence, the Ottawa Little Theatre has equaled
professional theatre companies both in attendance and in production
quality. Winston’s account, clearly a labor of love, opens the
reader’s eyes to the struggles of small theatre companies. That the
Ottawa Little Theatre has survived the development of movie houses,
fire, and financial difficulties testifies to of the public appeal of
the drama it has offered (“lighter shows,” Winston notes, “were
the most likely to play to sold-out houses”). This book demonstrates
how this amateur community theatre filled “an important need in the
community” and provided “an outlet for people who love the
theatre.”

Appendices provide key dates and a list of plays staged from 1913 to
1998. Noteworthy among the book’s photos are those taken by Yousuf
Karsh. Staging a Legend is neither an exhaustive nor a critical study,
but rather a pleasing coffee-table–style book.