Live theatre in Sudbury has undergone many shifts and changes over the past five decades, especially the most recent. The same applies to cinema and film offerings, but the shows have gone on.
Drama has always been offered in high schools and sometimes at colleges and universities. Sudbury Secondary, in particular, has long offered theatre and produced plays for public consumption. In 1985, Sudbury Secondary introduced a Performing Arts program, the first such initiative outside Toronto. It is now known as the Arts Education program.
In the 1960s, Laurentian University had The University Players as a club, but no explicit program. As higher education institutions expanded during the 1970s, Cambrian and Thorneloe colleges added Theatre Arts to their curricula. Theatre companies emerged on the campuses with Theatre Cambrian at Cambrian College and the Thorneloe Players at Laurentian University.
They joined an active theatre scene in which the Little Theatre Guild and the annual Kiwanis festival held centre stage.
In 1974, the first professional theatre, Sudbury Theatre Centre (STC), was founded. It lasted 50 years. An illustrated chronology of STC, entitled “A Theatre in Five Acts”, was authored by Judi Straughan and Vicki Gilhula. They noted that the Sudbury Little Theatre Guild, which had been active for about 40 years, spawned the Sudbury Theatre Centre, the only English professional theatre company north of Barrie.
Two years ago, STC was melded with YES Theatre, directed by Alessandro Costantini. The latter company had been offering mainly musicals for the past 15 years. Audiences seem to appreciate YES Theatre’s offerings, as shown by high attendance at shows such as “Chicago” and “The Music of the Beatles”.
In the past three years, the company expanded its offerings to include non-musicals, such as Shakespearian classics. From a critical perspective one might note that at present the mix of plays, musicals and shows tends more towards entertainment and emotional content with superb singing, rather than the classic theatre of thought-provoking ideas. The actors are a mix of professionals and local community talent.
In addition to the STC building with its 298 seats, a new venue has been added by YES Theatre: an open-air stage in a vacant lot downtown called the Refettorio.
Other Sudbury theatre venues are at Thorneloe University on Laurentian’s grounds, at Cambrian College and at some high schools, with the Sheridan Auditorium at Sudbury Secondary School offering full lighting, sound and other options.
Collège Boréal has state-of-the-art sound and lighting in its 350-seat Trisac Centre. Place des Arts’ newer space (299-seat theatre plus smaller rehearsal hall) has become very popular, with Théâtre du Nouvel-Ontario taking up residence there along with other Francophone institutions.
Theatre Cambrian, founded by Jamie Bourget in 1985, left Cambrian College and acquired its own theatre space on Eyre Street, but sold it before disbanding due to the pandemic. After that demise, the Sudbury Performance Group was formed, offering plays and musicals.
The Thorneloe Players and students from the university classes performed several times a year before the Theatre Arts program closed in 2021 because of Laurentian University’s insolvency. Laurentian severed relations with its federated colleges undercutting their financial viability. The 157-seat theatre at Thorneloe named for Ernie Checkeris remains and is the home of Sudbury Performance Group productions.
Francophone theatre remains very strong in Sudbury. One of the best theatre programs in the province has always been at École secondaire Macdonald-Cartier.
Théâtre du Nouvel-Ontario, the only professional Francophone theatre in Northern Ontario, began just before the Sudbury Theatre Centre. For more than 50 years, it has presented mind-challenging fare plus comedies and entertainment. Its early history has been penned by Guy Gaudreau and students in “Le Theatre du Nouvel-Ontario Vingt Ans” (1991).
Some of its presentations provide simultaneous English subtitles. Also offering local actors an opportunity to practice acting and stage skills is Café Heritage, which produces bilingual musicals and shows, primarily through heritage-themed events in Northeastern Ontario. It brings shows to school students as well as the local communities in Rayside-Balfour.
Burlesque shows have been held for some time by Sudbury Burlesque, often at the old Grand Theatre, which has gone through many configurations including dance hall and movie theatre. The burlesque group offers various entertainment including drag, comedy, striptease and audience participation.
La Gang à Popa presents cabarets in Blezard Valley, offering cabaret (or Cabarire in their terms) and lighter fare, some in English.
As in music and visual arts, Sudbury has provided notable exports to other places, demonstrating the level of training offered here. Richard Rose attended Lockerby Composite School then created The Necessary Angel group in Toronto, financed by his father. He became artistic director at the Tarragon Theatre from 2002 to 2021 and recently was appointed to the Order of Canada.
After graduating from St. Charles College, another Sudbury native, Antoni Cimolino, later became general manager of the Stratford Festival Theatre before becoming its artistic director.
Big screen
Moving away from the stage and onto the big screen, Hollywood-produced flicks dominate at the downtown Imagine Cinema theatre in Elm Place. Silver City, by contrast, has several small and large seating venues, though it also shows mainly movies from Hollywood and Europe. Occasionally, it broadens its offerings, especially by hosting the annual film festival. Further, it brought Saturday afternoon live opera directly from the Metropolitan Opera in New York by simultaneous transmission.
Three developments shifted the cinema scene in Sudbury. Though generally staying in the Hollywood and west European blockbuster movie traditions, Cinéfest, the Sudbury International Film Festival, held each September at the Silver Screen venue, has garnered a large following. Since 1988, it has grown in stature, style and content. With numerous galas and a week of movies shown almost around the clock, the Sudbury event has become one of Canada’s main film festivals.
It presents many Toronto International Film Festival premieres, including locally created and produced films. During the year, usually bimonthly, it screens films that are significant and contenders for international prizes.
In 1994, the IMAX cinema at Science North introduced Sudbury to a new size and style of seeing films. Its huge screen and surround (sometimes too loud) sound engaged audiences in a visceral fashion.
Memorable, among many, was the locally produced film starring Ron Tough as a bush pilot in a theatre with shaking chairs and spraying water to provide the experience of getting airborne and landing on lakes. Eye-opening were the underwater shots of beavers’ paws opening while swimming.
More recently IMAX participated in creating or promoting films about Sudbury’s regreening. Unfortunately, from an historian’s, as opposed to a biologists’ or city booster, perspective the results are incomplete. Films like Jane Goodall’s “Reasons to Hope” explained the science, but omitted some of the pioneers who challenged Sudbury’s pollution situation and overlooked the financial and unemployment side that made the grants and support for liming barren lands possible.
Those reservations aside, the IMAX always offers the audience thrilling rides and magic cinema experiences. Whether soaring through canyons or over tundra, it combines special cinematography with education.
The third development came in the form of a community-initiative to establish an independent movie theatre downtown. Structured as a member-owned cooperative, Sudbury Independent Cinema was founded 12 years ago and successfully adapted a defunct school gym into a state-of-the-art fully digital, single screen cinema, colloquially known as The Indie.
The co-op presents films that the commercial cinemas generally avoid: foreign films, documentaries and Canadian fare. In addition to daily programming, The Indie holds five weekend festivals of themed films such as documentary, wilderness adventure, LBTQ and animé. It has a large membership and cheap fees.
The Indie has shown many films from Korea, Japan, central and eastern Europe that would otherwise not have been available to Sudbury audiences. The driving force in organizing the coop and renovating the building was Beth Mairs.
Sudbury, like North Bay, has become a movie producing city. Music and Film in Motion (MFM), now called CION (Cultural Industries Ontario North), is an organization created in 2000 to strengthen Northern Ontario’s music industry and to develop a film and television industry in the region.
A driving force in its creation and initial years was Mark Palumbo, who received a civic award in recognition of his dedication. Since 2012, Northern Ontario Film Studios has offered space and infrastructure support to small film companies. In co-operation with the city and province, many popular and significant films and TV shows, such as “Letterkenny” and “Indian Horse”, were partly filmed here.
You can find a full listing of movies, including documentaries, filmed in Sudbury by clicking here.
Despite the financial difficulties both the theatres and cinemas have had to overcome, this aspect of Sudbury’s cultural scene remains vibrant because it has had forceful and dedicated personalities who are passionate about these arts. I have probably not identified or highlighted enough of these cultural workers in all the realms covered in this series.
Dr. Dieter K. Buse is professor emeritus, History, Laurentian University, and a failed trumpet and banjo player. He is writing a series of columns on local culture and history on behalf of the Sudbury Arts Council.
