'The Country Mouse at Play': Theatre in the Peace River District 1914-1945

• Published in: Theatre Research in Canada
• Main Author: Day, Moira
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) 1991
• Subjects: Visual Arts and Performing Arts; Peace River
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/tric.12.2.115; https://utpjournals.press/doi/full/10.3138/tric.12.2.115

Most theatre history studies concentrate on theatre as it was experienced in the larger urban centres of eastern and western Canada assuming that theatre in the rural districts either followed a similar pattern or simply did not exist. By exploring the dynamics of entertainment in the prosperous but unusually isolated Peace River country in northwestern Alberta between 1914 and 1945, this paper hopes to suggest that rural theatre, particularly in the more isolated districts, often had a distinct character of its own arising from the particular geography,social needs, economic conditions and human resources of the area.