The Crest Theatre Foundation was a professional theatre company in Toronto, Ontario, Canada that operated from 1954 to 1966. The company performed in the Crest Theatre, a former cinema converted to live theatre.
In 1950s Toronto, live theatre was mostly touring companies of English and American productions with little Canadian participation. Recent graduates of the University of Toronto Theatre program were determined to change this. The Crest Foundation was a new company producing plays, both international and Canadian. Two graduates: Donald and Murray Davis set up a new limited company in 1953 and leased the Crest Theatre, opening their first production in January 1954.
The Crest provided valuable work and exposure for up-and-coming and little-known Canadian actors, directors and playwrights. By the time the Crest finally closed, the Canadian live theatre scene had expanded greatly, and many of those who had participated at the Crest moved on to notable careers in film, television and theatre.
After several seasons, the theatre company was in debt and running a deficit each season. In 1957, a non-profit foundation was set up, making the theatre eligible for government arts grants. However the new organization was not enough to keep it going, and the accumulated debt grew. After twelve seasons, the Crest folded. In 1968, Theatre Toronto was formed from the Crest and Canadian Players organizations. It would eventually become the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts' production company.
History In post-war Canada, there were few Canadian live theatre companies, and few outlets for Canadian playwrights. Canadian actors typically found work in touring productions, or on radio and television.
In Toronto, audiences interested in professional theatre saw mainly touring productions from Britain or the USA. As well, Toronto had lost its largest theatre venue, the Princess Theatre in 1930, and several theatres, such as the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatres and Pantages Theater had been converted to cinemas. The opening of the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, the O'Keefe Centre and the inauguration of the independent theatre troupes that Toronto has today, was still decades away.
Straw Hat Players
In 1948, Murray and Donald Davis, recent alumni of the University of Toronto theatre program, founded the Straw Hat Players summer troupe performing in the Muskoka area of Ontario at the Port Carling Memorial Hall in Bala. The Davises and fellow classmates Araby Lockhart, Eric House, Charmion King and Ted Follows starred in the premiere production The Drunkard in 1948. In 1955, the Davises relinquished control of the Straw Hat Players after the founding of the Crest. It continued to hire university student actors. In 1958, Davis' cousin William Davis took over the company and ran it until 1961. Others continued the summer productions until 1968. In 1969, a successor organization, Theatre 21, continued productions in Muskoka.
Founding In 1950, the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences (Massey-Lévesque Commission) led to the development of subsidies to develop the arts in Canada. The Crest Theatre troupe was founded in 1953 by Murray and Donald Davis and their sister Barbara Chilcott. The opening of the Crest, less than three years after the Massey-Levesque report, signalled the beginning of an indigenous, commercial theatre in Toronto. The company's mandate was to establish a repertory theatre and to "contribute to the cultural life of Canada by providing opportunities for the development of Canadian artistic directors, playwrights, designers, managers and technicians."
The company took over the 822-seat Crest Theatre (formerly named the Belsize) built in 1927, located on Mount Pleasant Road at Belsize Drive. The theatre, a first-run cinema, had a small stage, and it was renovated for live theatre.
The company recruited professionals from London, England to help the theatre get off its feet. The company recruited the general manager of the Arts Theatre in London, England, Brian Maller, to be business manager. The company also hired persons from British theatre on six-month contracts in key positions. John Blatchley and Pierre Lefevre were hired to alternately direct plays in the first season. Set and costume design also went to another British veteran, Hutchinson Scott. All of the British hires had clauses in their contracts that they must train Canadian assistants as their replacements when they went back to Britain.
Costume production was done in-house, in a store nearby the Crest by Theatre staff, to the designs needed for each play. Set construction was done in an 1800s-era, unheated old warehouse near Logan and Gerrard and delivered to the Theatre in time for dress rehearsal.
The Crest opened its first play on January 5, 1954, with a production of Richard of Bordeaux, starring Chilcott, Murray Davis and Patrick Macnee, directed by Blatchley. On opening night, the theatre was picketed by a theatre union, claiming that the theatre owners Famous Players were required to hire full-time backstage staff and an orchestra for vaudeville. In all, the company staged eleven plays in its first season, playing through June of that year. All plays had two-week runs.
In the fall of 1956, the company preceded its productions with a week of performances by French mime Marcel Marceau. These were lucrative for the company and provided a good source of funds for the season ahead.
In 1957, British author J.B. Priestley wrote The Glass Cage for the brothers and premiered it with the company in Toronto. The troupe then moved the play to London's West End. This was the first all-Canadian troupe to play in London. Another notable play was The Three Sisters, directed by Jack Landau and starring Kate Reid, Charmion King, Amelia Hall and Powys Thomas. Barry Morse directed Salad Days in 1958, then took the production to New York where it ran off-Broadway for 80 performances.
Significance in Canadian theatre The Crest was acted mainly by Canadian actors. Toronto had had theatre companies before (such as the Cummings Stock Company), but most theatrical productions in Toronto before World War II were touring productions from Broadway and London, such as those performed at the Royal Alexandra Theatre and the Princess Theatre using the touring cast. Also, the Crest premiered plays written by Canadian playwrights, and used Canadian directors. The play selection varied between Shakespeare, musicals, dramas and revues. Production was done using Canadian staff with sets and costumes produced in-house. Crest, along with the Stratford Festival, and later the Shaw Festival, helped establish a permanent Canadian theatre company presence in the 1950s and early 1960s. The Crest also mounted touring productions, and summer productions.
The list of Canadian actors to have performed at the Crest is extensive. For many, these were early performances in their careers. The list includes John Baylis, Dave Broadfoot, William Brydon, Jackie Burroughs, Dinah Christie, Robert Christie, Leo Ciceri, Peter Cullen, Fred Davis, Louis del Grande, Peter Donat, James Doohan, Jack Duffy, Colin Fox, Don Francks, David Gardner, Robert Goulet, Bruno Gerussi, Amelia Hall, Paul Harding, Barbara Hamilton, Martha Henry, Eric House, Frances Hyland, Charmion King, Tom Kneebone, Marilyn Lightstone, George McCowan, Richard Monette, Barry Morse, William Needles, Gordon Pinsent, Kate Reid, Norma Renault, Douglas Rain, Toby Robins, Toby Tarnow, John Vernon, Jonathan White and Austin Willis.
Directors included Malcolm Black, Douglas Campbell, Marigold Charlesworth, David Gardner, Robert Gill, John Hirsch, John Holden, Allan Lund, Leon Major, George McCowan, Barry Morse, Mavor Moore, Curt Reis, Jean Roberts, Herbert Whittaker, and Donald and Murray Davis.
The founders each acted with the troupe. Barbara Chilcott was Viola in Twelfth Night, Antigone in Antigone, and her favourite role, Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra, and many other roles. Murray was Richard II in Richard of Bordeaux.
In all, the company produced more than 90 plays from both Canadian and international repertoires. These included plays by Canadians Robertson Davies, Marcel Dubé, John Gray, Mavor Moore and Bernard Slade.
Management, financing and conclusion The company paid a monthly rent of and in 1964 had a yearly budget of . The company's business model was to put on 40 weeks of productions, each production running for two weeks at a time. The productions would not bring in an international star at high fees, instead attention was spent on all parts of a production: the quality of the drama, acting, sets, lighting, all overseen by the company's producer. This was similar to the model created by the Tennent Organization in London, which was able to produce up to 15 plays per month in London's West End and the Davises hoped to be commercially successful enough to be viable.
The enterprise was financed by ticket revenues, arts grants and sponsors. Ticket prices were lower than the downtown venue, both for competitive reasons and wanting to be widely affordable. It experimented with a mixture of private and public funding, beginning as a limited-liability company. According to Murray, "what we are interested in primarily is to establish a policy of good entertainment at popular prices but on a business basis which returns dividends to our shareholders." Ticket prices ranged from 75 cents in the rear balcony to and the Davises calculated that an average of 50% full houses, the theatre could return a surplus.
However, the limited company did not last. In 1957, the Crest reorganized as a non-profit foundation run by a board of directors. Expectations of profitability had changed and the goal was to break even or return a surplus not simply on ticket revenues. On this point, the foundation was unsuccessful. The foundation ran annual deficits of an average of and was repeatedly bailed out by private support, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Council for the Arts. The situation was not unique to the Crest, the Canadian Players (a touring company for Stratford Festival actors) also failed at the same time as the Crest.
The Crest troupe wound up its operations after its final performance on April 30, 1966, after mounting 140 productions. In the previous year, the Canada Council refused the theatre its annual grant, eventually reinstated it, but the first two productions of 1966 were failures and artistic director Murray Davis resigned. The troupe was able to finance its final season with a public subscription campaign and reinstated grants. However, at the end of its final run, and its final production of Hedda Gabler, it was reported to be in debt for the season.
The Crest Foundation hoped to merge with the Canadian Players Foundation to continue, however both foundations had accumulated debts of each, complicating plans to continue. Plans finally collapsed when prospective artistic directors Marigold Charlesworth and Jean Roberts cut ties when the Foundation could not resolve its financial situation. The Crest Theatre Foundation gave up its tenancy at the Crest theatre and the Canadian Players gave up its tenancy at the Central Library theatre and cancelled its 1966-1967 season. Charlesworth and Roberts had hoped to do one season with the merged groups and then move into the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts downtown.
Legacy In 1968, a new entity, Theatre Toronto would emerge, effectively a merger of the Crest and Canadian Players. The artistic director was Clifford Williams, formerly of the Royal Shakespeare Company. It put on productions at the Royal Alexandra for two seasons. When the new St. Lawrence Centre was completed in 1970, Theatre Toronto would merge with its organization and become the St Lawrence Centre's Toronto Arts Foundation, under artistic director Leon Major.