How It Began

A character in “The Snow Ball” states that it’s “time to move on...time to grow”. Another replies: “Maybe it’s time to remember who we are...it’s roots that count...that’s why (we) have lasted so long”.

The “roots” of Kanata Theatre go deep...back to the fall of 1968 in the community of Beaverbrook in the Kanata area of March Township. There were approximately 200 families living there at the time and the Kanata Standard, a monthly mimeographed publication of the Beaverbrook Community Association (we ran it off in our basement), kept us in touch with the events in the community. In the October edition, there appeared the following notice under the title Adult Drama Club:

An invitation to all ham actors. Please join us at our first meeting  October 22^nd at 8:00 p.m. - 12 Sandwell Crescent. This will probably be a play-reading group initially but who knows how it may develop. Just come along and bring your bright ideas with you.

Mary Mauger placed the notice and thus the “seed” for Kanata Theatre was planted. The first meeting was attended by ten “hams”: Mary and her husband Ted, Dewi and Eufron Williams, Pat and Bob Horobin, Rosemary Scott, Elsie Bryant, another woman whose name slips my memory, and myself, Gwen Knight. The Horobins and the “other woman” left Kanata soon after, but the other seven are still members. Obviously, the “seed” took “root” and grew to the 400+ members we have today.

At first, we were known as “Kanata Theatre Group” as it sounded much too presumptuous to call ourselves a “Theatre”, not even a “Little Theatre”. The original members met in one another’s homes to read plays. As a group, we also attended plays at the N.A.C. and elsewhere in Ottawa. From the beginning, it was decided to limit our membership to residents of Kanata. For that reason we decided not to join “Camelot Little Theatre” (a forerunner to Nepean Little Theatre) which had formed in Glen Cairn around the same time. They had unrestricted membership but we elected to maintain close ties within the Kanata community.