Message from the Chair

Performance at The Creative School has a long track record of providing education in the area of live performance, design and technical production. In the 1960s and 70s there was tremendous growth in the Canadian Theatre Industry; in Toronto alone, several new theatre companies emerged including Theatre Passe Muraille, the Tarragon and Factory theatres. The Canadian Government established several new granting organizations dedicated to the burgeoning cultural industry. The Theatre School (RTS as it was known) opened its doors in 1971, the result of a recognized need for excellence in professional theatre training. 

Jack McAllister, a veteran with decades of experience in the live performance industry, looked to London’s Central School of Speech and Drama as the model for our own theatre school. McAllister's proposal was accepted, and was followed soon after with a recommendation to incorporate the Canadian College of Dance in Montreal (associated with the Royal Academy of Dancing and the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing) into the new theatre program. In the beginning, training for acting and arts administration was offered as a four-year program and technical production and dance training was a three-year diploma. RTS became one of only two schools in North America to offer full-time professional theatre training in acting, dance, arts administration, and technical production. As we continue to develop the student learning experience, the School now offers three full-time BFA programs: Performance Acting, Dance & Production; collaborates with Creative Industries (BA), Professional Music (BFA), Script Writing and Story Design (MFA) and Media and Design Innovation (PhD). 

Located for many years at 44 Gerrard St E, the School moved to SLC at 345 Yonge St. with offices in the Atrium at Yonge and Dundas in 2016. Most recently, the School is developing the mandate of the mainstage proscenium theatre hub, Chrysalis at The Creative School, to focus on the student experience, shared faculty research opportunities, and community engagement. 

Current facilities include a proscenium stage, flexible black box studio, rehearsal rooms, dance studios, wood/metal workshop, scenic art/drafting lab, costume workshops, and a range of other teaching spaces. Training is offered in acting, ballet, jazz, modern and contemporary dance, scenic and costume design, lighting design, sound design, technical theatre, playwriting and directing, production and stage management. 

Poised in a time of transformational change, we hope that you will continue to recognize changes happening across the School and the Faculty, most notably improvements in the learning and teaching environment. 

As a student in Performance, your voice is important and can be channelled through the Students' Union representatives, through class reps within the School and through the University Senate. 

Caroline O'Brien
Chair, School of Performance
Toronto Metropolitan University