A significant turn in the history of Canadian theatre was marked when Paul Thompson left the Stratford Festival in 1970 to become director of Theatre Passe Muraille in Toronto.
TPM had been founded in 1968 (sez Wikipedia:)
Its radical intention was create a distinctly Canadian voice in theatre. It was conceived in the notion that theatre should transcend real estate; that plays can be made and staged anywhere—in barns, in auction rings, in churches, bars, basements, lofts, even in streetcars; and it was interested in the idea that theatre need not be a vehicle of social change, but rather it should endeavour always to be a mirror to social change.They succeeded. Thompson's productions like "The Farm Show" made a powerful cultural force out of indigenous Canadian theatre, plays that created work from Canadian materials, often in the place where they came from.
This year film maker Rachel Thompson is launching "Theatre Beyond Walls with Paul Thompson," a new documentary about her father and his movement ("How to build a country, one play at a time"). It's showing in Toronto November 13
