1945: Department of Drama Formed
The first meeting of the Saskatchewan Drama League was held in Regina
in March 1933. Their stated aim was “to
assist in the development of the art of the theatre in the Province...and to
promote a right relation between drama and the life of the community.” “Probably 60 people” were in attendance,
“including the Premier, who strongly supported the work.”
Although they had made considerable advances, including the
establishment of a 600-volume lending library of plays, by 1939 the League, run
by volunteers, felt it lacked sufficient organization ability to expand. They believed “progress” could “best be made
through affiliation with the University.
For its part, the University offered to provide a “spiritual home” for “the
drama movement.” President James
Thomson was hoping to further University extension services “through a broad
programme of adult education,” and viewed cooperation with the League as
furthering that aim. The University
appointed Katherine McConechy as secretary to the League, for an eight-month
term, and were pleased enough with the results that she was re-hired on
subsequent terms. By 1943, with help
from a Rockefeller Foundation grant, they had hired Helen Stewart on a
part-time basis as an Instructor, to train leaders and promote “a policy for
wide drama education in the province.”
By September 1944, Helen Stewart had decided to marry and asked to be
released from her contract. Two months’
earlier Emrys Jones had expressed interest in coming to work for the
University, and–much to Thomson’s relief–was still available.
By this time, Thomson’s view of the University and drama education had
undergone a shift: Jones’ chief responsibilities “would be the teaching of
Drama in its more academic and cultural aspects, with the hope of establishing
Dramatics as a worthy part of an integrated programme in the Fine Arts.”1 At the time of his appointment, Emrys Jones
was the first full-time professor of drama at a Commonwealth university;2
and his Department was the “only university department in Canada devoted solely
to the teaching of drama.”3
Jones remained Head of the department until 1971, and retired from the
University in 1973.
| Related Collections |  |
Department of Drama fonds, RG 2036.
W.L. Mills fonds, MG 83.
M.L. Wittlin fonds, MG 245.
| Images | |
1945a: detail from costume plot. Department of Drama fonds.
1945b: Emrys Jones. Photograph Collection, A-3332.
| Sources | |
1. All quotations to this point from President’s Office Records, series II, file B-55.
2. Faculty Biographies Collection, E.M. Jones file.
3. King, p. 23.
|
;)
;)
