Abstract
This chapter analyses a long-standing relationship between Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre and local schools, colleges and universities and in particular, the University of Toronto. Contextualizing this relationship in the larger historical landscape of cultural and educational policy and global migration, we chart the change in focus from simply offering plays to young people, to developing youth skills to enable them to become full artistic participants in the life of the theatre.
In describing our different histories with Tarragon we, as authors, bring to this chapter recent experiences and those that go back 20 years. To offer a present-day youth perspective, we introduce a case study of a young playwright (and former University of Toronto student) who has been an active participant in recent educational programming at Tarragon. She suggests that Tarragon’s engagement of youth through intensive playwriting programming is important but that she did not, as a young artist, feel fully integrated into the artistic work of the theatre. We conclude by recognizing the scale of this theatre and its potential for youth programming, which is moving slowly and steadily towards becoming more vital to the ambitions of the theatre in spite of the constraints of available funding.
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- 1.
Toronto’s Fred Victor in its 2014–2015 Annual Report states, “Our mission is to provide responsive, accessible and innovative housing and services for people who are experiencing homelessness and poverty, and to work for a more equitable society” (p. 2).
- 2.
This Toronto-based survey interviewed audience members in multiple performing arts organizations regarding their engagement. The report states that it was “a first-time, collaborative initiative by Toronto’s creative performing arts companies to hear directly from their audiences on what motivates them to attend and what helps them connect more deeply with the work they see on stage” (p. 5).
- 3.
MacLeod’s most recent play produced at Tarragon in 2014, The Valley, focused on the mental health challenges experienced by a young man and his vigilant mother.
- 4.
The report states that it was, “a first-time, collaborative initiative by Toronto’s creative performing arts companies to hear directly from their audiences on what motivates them to attend and what helps them connect more deeply with the work they see on stage” (p. 5).
- 5.
In 2014, The Spring Training Project was discontinued and the educational department refocused on more intentionally working with youth through schools and teachers. This cancellation was intended to place the educational opportunities on a broader footing that would include more youth accessed through schools.
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Gallagher, K., Wessels, A. (2019). Staying the Course and ‘Here to Question’: Envisioning Education at Tarragon Theatre as an Integral Goal and a Reciprocal Practice. In: Finneran, M., Anderson, M. (eds) Education and Theatres. Landscapes: the Arts, Aesthetics, and Education, vol 27. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22223-9_2
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