The Magnetic North Theatre Festival is an annual festival celebrating

theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...

and related performing arts in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

operated by the Canadian Theatre Festival Society in partnership with the

National Arts Centre The National Arts Centre (NAC) (french: Centre national des Arts) is a Arts centre, performing arts organisation in Ottawa, Ontario, along the Rideau Canal. It is based in the eponymous National Arts Centre (building), National Arts Centre build ...

. The festival is held

Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...

every two years, with it being held in other Canadian cities in the alternating years. Other cities that have hosted the festival include

Edmonton Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city ancho ...

, St. John's and

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

. The festival offers not only productions and performances for the theatre-going public, but offers workshops and seminars aimed at theatre students and theatre professionals.

The festival

The impetus that resulted in the creation of Magnetic North Theatre Festival grew out of experiences

Marti Maraden Marti Maraden (born June 22, 1945 in El Centro, California) is a Canadian actor and director. She emigrated to Canada in 1968, and became a leading actor at the Stratford Festival in the 1970s. She was artistic director of the National Arts Cen ...

had travelling across Canada in her role as artistic director of the National Arts Centre ("NAC"). Through relationships Maraden built early in her tenure, the NAC contemplated the creation of a national theatre festival. During a theatre conference in 2002, NAC staff discovered that other theatre professionals were considering the same idea, resulting in a movement to organize such an annual festival. As the national theatre community had little desire for such a festival to be "owned" by the NAC or entrenched in Ottawa, organizers settled on having the location of the festival alternating with Ottawa. In 2002, the Canadian Theatre Festival Society was incorporated for the purpose of operating the festival in partnership with the NAC. Mary Vingoe was appointed as the festival's first artistic director. The society's mandate was to produce and promote contemporary

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...

theatre in Canada of high artistic standards of a national scope. Promoted as "Canada's National Festival of Contemporary Canadian Theatre in English", the first Magnetic North Theatre Festival was held in Ottawa in 2003. In addition to a presenting a slate of theatrical performances, the festival holds lectures, workshops, symposia, discussion panels, and opportunities to meet the performers of the various productions as well as prominent members of the Canadian theatrical community. In addition to targeting the general public, the festival's offerings include events catering to working professionals in the theatre, which include networking and community-building activities. The festival was instrumental in raising the profile of Canadian touring artists and companies, many of whom secured regular national and international touring thanks to their participation in Magnetic North. Some of these notable companies and artists who were Magnetic North mainstays include Theatre Replacement, Electric Company Theatre, Neworld Theatre (Vancouver), Catalyst Theatre (Edmonton), One Yellow Rabbit (Calgary), Crow's Theatre, Mammalian Diving Reflex (Toronto), Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland (St John's) and Zuppa (Halifax). Total festival attendance in 2007 was over 9,000. In 2008, the festival featured 53 performances, involving 10 works in the main program at eight venues, as well as the "Magnetic Encounters" artist talk series and the industry networking event, bringing the total number of public events to over 80. Ken Cameron succeeded Vingoe as artistic director in 2007 and served in that position until 2010. The festival's current artistic director is Brendan Healy, who was named to the position in 2016. On March 22, 2017, the Magnetic North Theatre Festival announced that it would be cancelling its upcoming 2017 season and would be permanently cancelling the festival. The festival stated that due to the festival's accumulated debt, continued operations of the festival would be untenable. However, on September 15, 2017, a group of artists and administrators stepped forward to revive the festival by establishing a new board of directors for the organization and developing a plan to retire its debt. The organizers intend to relaunch the festival in 2019.

Festival locations

Alternating with Ottawa every second year, the Magnetic North Theatre Festival has been held in the following cities: * 2003

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

* 2004

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

* 2005 Ottawa, Ontario * 2006 St. John's,

Newfoundland and Labrador Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...

* 2007 Ottawa, Ontario * 2008

, B.C. * 2009 Ottawa, Ontario * 2010 Kitchener and Waterloo, Ontario * 2011 Ottawa, Ontario * 2012

Calgary Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, makin ...

, Alberta * 2013 Ottawa, Ontario * 2014 Halifax,

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...

* 2015 Ottawa, Ontario * 2016

Whitehorse, Yukon Whitehorse () is the capital of Yukon, and the largest city in Northern Canada. It was incorporated in 1950 and is located at kilometre 1426 (Historic Mile 918) on the Alaska Highway in southern Yukon. Whitehorse's downtown and Riverdale area ...

* 2017 Ottawa, Ontario (Cancelled) * 2019 Vancouver, British Columbia

Artistic directors & Executive Directors

* Mary Vingoe AD (2002-2007) & Barbara Howatt ED * Ken Cameron (2007-2010) & Ann Connors ED * Ann Connors (2010-2012, as artistic executive director) * Brenda Leadlay (2012-2016, as artistic executive director) * Brendan Healy (2016)

Industry Series and Encounters Series Associates & Curators

* Ann-Marie Kerr * Sherrie Johnson * Naomi Campbell * Kris Nelson * Marcus Youssef * Robert Chafe * Dustin Scott Harvey

References

{{reflist

External links

Official websiteMagnetic North Theatre Festival (R12240)
at

Library and Archives Canada Library and Archives Canada (LAC; french: Bibliothèque et Archives Canada) is the federal institution, tasked with acquiring, preserving, and providing accessibility to the documentary heritage of Canada. The national archive and library is th ...

Theatre festivals in Ontario Festivals in Ottawa Theatre in Ottawa