Title and statement of responsibility area
Title proper
Theatre Energy fonds
General material designation
- Textual record
Parallel title
Other title information
Title statements of responsibility
Title notes
- Source of title proper: Title based on the contents of the fonds.
Level of description
Fonds
Reference code
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Edition statement of responsibility
Class of material specific details area
Statement of scale (cartographic)
Statement of projection (cartographic)
Statement of coordinates (cartographic)
Statement of scale (architectural)
Issuing jurisdiction and denomination (philatelic)
Dates of creation area
Date(s)
-
1970s to 1990s (Creation)
Physical description area
Physical description
3.25 m of textual records and other materials
Title proper of publisher's series
Parallel titles of publisher's series
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Statement of responsibility relating to publisher's series
Numbering within publisher's series
Note on publisher's series
Archival description area
Name of creator
Administrative history
Theatre Energy, 1976-1993, was a prominent, innovative theatre collective in the West Kootenay area of British Columbia. Centred originally in the Slocan Valley, it was founded in the spring of 1976 when a small group of local actors, who had been staging amateur productions of published plays, decided to “do theatre in a bigger way, to making our own plays.” They began by offering a series of community summer workshops, utilizing the skills of local and outside resource persons, notably Ronnie Gilbert who had been a member of Joseph Chaikin’s Open Theatre Company in New York and Buzz Bense who had worked with Tamahnous Theatre collective in Vancouver. Both became active members of Theatre Energy.
The original company consisted of eight members operating as a theatre collective whose mandate was to make theatre “by, for and about the Kootenays,” creating their first work, Renderings, with stories and images from their direct experiences of living in the Slocan Valley. This was followed by works of local histories such as Voices, Now and Then in the Kootenays (tales of settlement of various peoples in the Valley), which had a number of incarnations as a touring show to high schools, and a number of locally inflected works. These included Muck Millie Virgil (open and non-monogamous relationships), Powerplay (exploitation of local natural resources), The Girls Will Be Out in a Minute (Kootenay women from historical and contemporary periods), and The Food Show (issues and celebrations of food). Eventually the Company began to include non-original, published plays beginning with Waiting for Godot and The Threepenny Opera in the early 1980s.
Through much of their production history, Theatre Energy members typically toured shows throughout the East and West Kootenays, as well as the Okanagan, and with occasional forays into the Cariboo District and Vancouver. These included school performances of the theatre-in-education, audience participation plays Project Immigration and Calling the Play. The company ceased operations in the mid-1990s.
Custodial history
Scope and content
The fonds consists of histories of Theatre Energy, records of early, founding activities, drafts of original scripts, and files regarding the non-original scripts, all ordered chronologically. Included alongside the scripts are correspondence, the company’s financial and operational records, including financial statements, employment records, fund raising files, miscellaneous performance projects, journals, reviews, and posters.
Notes area
Physical condition
Immediate source of acquisition
Gift of Penny Haggarty via James Hoffman, April 2015.
Arrangement
Language of material
Script of material
Location of originals
Availability of other formats
Restrictions on access
Terms governing use, reproduction, and publication
Finding aids
Uploaded finding aid
Associated materials
Accruals
2019-001, 2022-016
Alternative identifier(s)
Standard number
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Control area
Description record identifier
Institution identifier
Rules or conventions
Status
Revised
Level of detail
Partial
Dates of creation, revision and deletion
Created, February 27, 2019.
Revised, April 5, 2022.
Revised, November 23, 2022.
Language of description
- English