The New Play Society

Toronto’s Best Theatre in a Barn

Dora Mavor Moore was one of the early rebels of Canada’s alternative theatre scene. She used her talents as a teacher and director to bring her vision of plays by Canadians, for Canadians, to life. 

Born in Scotland in 1888 and educated at Toronto’s Margaret Eaton School of Literature and Expression, Dora took a keen interest in Shakespeare, along with the spoken word as a powerful element of drama.

Dora then headed to England in 1912 as the first Canadian to study at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. But she soon returned to make her professional acting debut in Ottawa’s Colonial Stock Company, which led to years acting, directing and touring.

By 1939, she was back in Toronto offering drama lessons through her company, The Village Players. Torontonians packed into the barn next to her Bathurst Street log cabin to watch Shakespeare and other theatre productions. But Dora’s ambitions lay beyond the barn: she wanted a permanent home in a proper theatre.

Founding The New Play Society

In the basement of the Royal Ontario Museum, there lay a theatre. It was a proscenium arch theatre without windows, wings, or bathrooms, and it measured only 20 feet wide by 15 feet high by 21 feet deep. But Dora Mavor Moore was offered this theatre as a permanent home, and so she formed the New Play Society (NPS) at the age of 58 in 1946.

With a shoestring budget, The New Play Society produced 70 plays in 25 years, ranging from British, American, and European plays, classical revivals, and foreign language performances. 

Before the NPS, Torontonians often saw theatre productions imported from Broadway or the West End at venues like the Royal Alexandra Theatre. Producing theatre, of any kind, with Canadian actors was often considered alternative theatre at that time. Dora’s was the first Toronto theatre company to train their actors in their own theatre school. And hers was the first company to present an all-Canadian production at the esteemed Royal Alexandria: Morley Callaghan’s To Tell The Truth in 1949.

Dora Mavor Moore’s Legacy

Today, many Toronto theatre professionals recognize the name of Dora Mavor Moore for the eponymous Dora Awards, which recognizes excellence in Toronto theatre, dance, and opera productions. But Toronto’s theatre history is steeped in Dora’s influence as an unparalleled teacher, director, and theatre innovator. 

Under Dora’s leadership, The New Play Society led a professional troupe long before Canadian theatre companies received provincial or federal fundings. Her troupe proved that Toronto could sustain a thriving local theatre scene.

Her students pushed boundaries in the alternative theatre scene she helped found, notably George Luscombe. And when Stratford, Ontario pitched a tent for its first theatre festival in 1953, about sixty percent of its actors and crew had New Play Society on their resume.

Robertson Davies, upon presenting her with an honorary degree from the University of Toronto, summed up her legacy, “She is now and always has been a strong woman, a great woman, and her place in the history of our Theatre is secure. Not to know her argues oneself unknown.”