Historiographing a Feminist Utopia: Collective Creation, History, and Feminist Theatre in Canada

Abstract

For Nightwood Theatre (1979–present) and the Théâtre Expérimental des Femmes (1979–1987), two of Canada’s pre-eminent feminist theatre companies, collective creation facilitated a more equitable distribution of power within organizational and artistic structures, challenged the centrality of the text within performance, and encouraged the development of innovative approaches to theatre practice. The practice of collective creation was also fraught with conflict, connected to everything from achieving consensus in the creative process to finding the time and resources to support a more drawn-out developmental period. This chapter interrogates the disjunction between the benefits of collective creation within Canadian feminist theatres and the fact that, in practice and in the writing of history, collective creation also suppressed some women’s voices as it amplified others.