MANDATE AND HISTORY Mandate The mandate of New Theatre of Ottawa is to produce plays from the contemporary repertoire, particularly plays or forms of theatre demanding a specific site or location. Secondarily, the New Theatre is committed to instruction and training in the arts, as well as raising the aesthetic taste and artistic appreciation of the public, through the medium of public performances or exhibitions. History Actors Co-op Theatre, as the company was originally called, was established to produce plays from the international repertoire, a practice which lay outside the mandates of other local professional companies. We believed it was crucial to hear voices from around the world. The Company's first production was David Mamet's American Buffalo . It was presented at the National Arts Centre's Atelier in the winter of 1986. Jim Garrard's Cold Comfort followed in 1989, at the Great Canadian Theatre Company (GCTC). Both these productions were staged with the audience wrapped around the set, to give the feeling of being “in the room” with the actors. There were no small thrust stages in Ottawa and our utilization of this audience configuration was innovative for its time. In 1991, Judgement by Barry Collins opened the new Arts Court Theatre . The show received unanimously rave critical reviews and was a landmark production in the professional Ottawa theatre scene. With these productions, the Company set a number of precedents that would remain: first and foremost, high professional standards; then, a desire to involve and collaborate with other artists, arts groups, and public and private organizations; and finally, the creative use of our minimal resources to mount innovative theatrical events. During the 1992-93 season the Company — now New Theatre of Ottawa — produced Jim Betts' family show, The Mystery of the Oak Island Treasure ; as wells as Morris Panych's 7 Stories . Produced at GCTC and the NAC respectively, both were critical and popular successes. In both cases, NTO worked with the host companies to stage the productions. GCTC help defray their rental costs and the NAC supported us in many areas. Both shows utilized the talent and labour of over 50 artists, technicians and support staff. On The Mystery of the Oak Island Treasure alone we paid 35 professionals for their work! In 1993-94 NTO produced The Baltimore Waltz by Paula Vogel at GCTC. This time we created the show without any financial support from GCTC. Also that season NTO presented a series of dramatic readings, most of which were presented in the NAC Atelier. One reading, however, was held at the Bytowne Cinema, Terry Eagleton's Wittgenstein . After the reading, which was performed with some creative staging, there was a screening of Derek Jarman's film Wittgenstein . This was followed by a panel discussion about the film and the play. New Theatre of Ottawa The excitement generated by that reading led us to change the focus of the Company. We wanted to present productions and readings in non-traditional venues, involve other disciplines and media and encompass a larger cultural and intellectual framework. In 1995, we produced Noelle Janaczewska's The History of Water at the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography. The site was particularly apt. The play explores the spaces in between languages and cultures. In this case, between two women, one Vietnamese and the other British, who must interact with one another and in the process, try to understand each other. Janaczewska writes: “Ideas about identity, photography, the place of the translator and the relationship between words and images, drift amongst childhood memories ...” The lighting design by Martin Conboy played with these ideas of image and space. He utilized lights from outdoors to illuminate the set and actors. Large lighting instruments were set up across the canal and projected through the windows of the Museum. The windows were continually sprayed with water which created a magical shimmering effect and became a visible manifestation of memory and space. That same season, New Theatre again presented staged readings and discussions, including “Bilingualism and Schizophrenia” and “Fixing the Self: Vampirism, Addiction and Philosophy”. In addition, we staged a full production of Peter Dwyer's Blue Panopticon in the National Research Council's Temple of Science . The play examines the links between Canada 's cultural and intelligence establishments and the venue was not only appropriate for the material but created a unique atmosphere for the production. In 1997 NTO produced the Canadian premiere of Irish playwright Jimmy Murphy's Brothers of the Brush . Our venue, like the play's set, was a building under renovation. The production opened to critical and popular acclaim and its run was sold out. In 2002 NTO produced Conor MacPherson's one man show St. Nicholas , at GCTC; and at Christ Church Cathedral in 2004, the Company presented Pierre Brault's wildly successful production of Blood on the Moon .
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