by Anna Bratulic

Theatre is often regarded as a distant, elite art form whose patrons are intellectuals or wealthy, or at least theatre-savvy.

Ted Little, a professor in the Theatre Department who also heads the Drama for Human Development (DFHD) program, is part of a revival of community-oriented, grassroots theatre.

“Community theatre provides a way for artists to regain contact with their communities. It also allows people in the community to perform their own art rather than just consume it,” he said in an interview.

Little, who is also co-artistic director of Teesri Duniya, a local production company, has worked on collaborative community play projects. For example, in the summer of 1999, when he was in British Columbia, he worked on a giant project that saw as many as 160 local people, with some professionals, take part in the production.

The play was a collection of local histories of the First Nations and townspeople living in the area. While the endeavour may have been complicated, given the size and mutual suspicion of the two groups, things tend to work out if certain momentum develops, he said.

“Usually, if they can get going, the groundswell behind them is hard to stop,” Little said. The repercussions of that community effort are still being felt to this day, because for one thing, “it put names to faces.”

These projects are not only intercultural, but often intergenerational as well. Little, Teesri Duniya and the DFHD are presently working with young people in Montreal’s South Asian community to create a series of theatre presentations. The young people will interview elders for insights into their culture and history, and use this collection as a basis for theatre about themselves.

Given the fact that non-professionals make up the core of community theatre talent, Little says that the quality of the work is often very high. His opinion is bolstered by Gazette theatre critic Pat Donnolly, who recently wrote that many of the local productions she has been to see lately rival some of the more professional ones.

Little thinks that both amateur and professional theatre styles have their virtues and are difficult to compare. Any vibrant theatre scene has both, and Little, who has worked across Canada, thinks that Montreal has a healthy mix. “It would be very hard to have a play here without making reference to the intercultural reality that is Canada today.”