| | LEVEL OF DESCRIPTION: | Fonds | | No.: | PR1086 | | TITLE: | Calgary Theatre Singers fonds | | CREATOR: | Calgary Theatre Singers | | DATE RANGE: | 1959-1978 | | EXTENT: | 0.17 m of textual records and other material
Includes 15 plans, 11 architectural drawings and 2 photographs. | | ADMINISTRATIVE | | HISTORY/BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: | The Calgary Theatre Singers (CTS) was founded in 1959 by Eileen Higgin, a singing teacher and the wife of Elgar Higgin, who was also involved in Calgary’s musical scene. Eileen founded CTS to help Calgary singers develop their experience on stage; she produced their annual musical productions. The Calgary Theatre Singers were incorporated under the Societies Act on July 30, 1959, to present, produce, manage conduct and represent such amateur plays, dramas, comedies, operas, burlesques, pantomimes, revues, promenade and other concerts, musical and other pieces, ballets, shows, exhibitions, variety and other entertainments that the Society saw fit, as well as to promote, encourage, and assist in the education of amateur performers. CTS’s first productions in 1960 were Mozart’s “The Impresario” and Kurt Weill’s “Down in the Valley.” CTS provided scholarships to encourage talented singers, dancers and actors to develop their talents. After twenty years of amateur productions, the 1978 production of “An Evening With Noel Coward” was CTS’s first professional production. This change, principally removing “amateur” from their objectives, was approved at the July 5, 1977 meeting of the CTS and registered July 14, 1977 with the Alberta Government. CTS was then the only group in Western Canada specializing in musical theatre. The Calgary Theatre Singers was dissolved in 1980. | | SCOPE AND CONTENT: | The fonds includes the Calgary Theatre Singers’ (CTS) incorporation application and bylaws, set and stage plans, architectural drawings for a proposed CTS building, programmes, photographs from “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” fifteen scrapbooks containing newspaper articles and advertisement, telegrams, postcards and programmes for CTS productions such as “The Sound of Music,” “Annie Get Your Gun,” “Carousel,” “The King and I,” “My Fair Lady,” “Oliver,” “South Pacific,” and one scrapbook with articles about a proposed CTS building (from a donated Canadian National Railway station). | | ASSOCIATED MATERIAL: | Also see the Calgary Theatre Singers fonds at the Glenbow Archives in Calgary, Alberta. | | GENERAL NOTE: | Information for the administrative history is from the records, from the Alberta Gazette, and from The History of Prairie Theatre, which can be found in the Provincial Archives of Alberta Reference Library, 792.09712 St91. |
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