Ironically, their productions were not appreciated in the context of the DDF. Perhaps only with director-playwright Herman VOADEN's "symphonic expressionism" and the left-wing Theatre of Action (1935-40), both in Toronto, did the Little Theatre chart some new directions. The early experimentation gave way to established classics, or increasingly trivial and sentimental plays reflecting the waning colonial ties of Empire, whether British, French or American, and the kind of material the movement initially protested against. But gradually the Depression years and the spirit of competitiveness defeated the Little Theatre as an art movement. Until at least 1950, the DDF was Canada's national theatre expression bringing together French and English, and uniting devotees from coast to coast. In October 1932 the DOMINION DRAMA FESTIVAL (DDF) was organized and its annual week-long competition became the focus and raison d'ètre for the Little Theatre movement. Some of the finest Canadian organizations were the Vancouver Little Theatre (1921-) Carroll Aikins's short-lived Home Theatre near Naramata, BC (1920-24) Toronto's University Alumnae (1918-) the Cercle Molière in St-Boniface (1925-) the Ottawa Little Theatre (1913-) the Montréal Repertory Theatre (1930-61) Father Legault's Compagnons de Saint-Laurent (1937-52) and the Halifax Theatre Arts Guild (1931-). His analytical treatise Creative Theatre (19) remains a prophetic expression of the movement's ideals. Toronto's Hart House Theatre (1919-) became the flagship and its first director, Roy Mitchell, the spokesperson for an art theatre in Canada. With the rising popularity of films and radio that followed in the 1920s, commercial touring declined and literally hundreds of grassroots community theatres blossomed across Canada to fill the vacuum. Yeats's and Lady Gregory's early 20th century Abbey Theatre in Dublin, the movement spread to North America prior to WWI. Inspired by late-19th-century European art troupes such as André Antoine's Théâtre Libre in Paris, and W. Originally, however, it referred to an international reform movement protesting against the crass, mass-produced, professional fare seen around the turn of the century. Little Theatre Movement or la petite scène has now become a generic term for the amateur or nonprofessional "community" theatre in Canada.
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