A Stage for All the World: Our Drama Centre at 50

December 2, 2016 – January 31, 2017

University of Toronto Centre for Drama

Robarts Library, First Floor Display Area

Liuqingqing Yang

A Stage For All the World: Our Drama Centre at 50 is a retrospective exhibition for the University of Toronto Centre for Drama – a major centre piece as well as the first event of the Centre’s 50th anniversary celebration.

This exhibition is intended to recollect memories of the Centre of the past decades, to welcome the alumni to the thrilling reunion. At the same time, the general public are also invited to join the show – this exhibition offers a gladly entrance to the drama world.

The exhibition is located at the first floor display area of Robarts Library in the St. George’s campus.

 Planning A Stage For All the World project began in June 2016. The planning and research process took four months. At the beginning of November, we began collecting and receiving our loan objects and made key curatorial decisions. In the end of November, we edited and printed our text. Installation took 15 hours. The exhibition opened on December 2nd, 2016. It closed on January 31st, 2017.

In addition to foregrounding the many monographs and edited volumes as well as two scholarly journals produced by the Centre, we augmented our display with a variety of other theatre related materials such as posters, costumes, props, prompt books, wigs, which transformed the venue into a coherent stage for the show. Our text included five large cabinet text panels on the themes of contribution to Canadian theatre studies, production and scholarship, diversity, and new trends. There were also 13 group labels introducing context of certain objects and over 100 object labels, some of which included brief notes. These varying forms of media allowed visitors of multiple interests to appreciate the exhibition. Interactive questions were included in each theme panel, and encouraged audiences to make connections and grasp the big idea of the show.

Much of our publicity was supported by campus media, Varsity and the University of Toronto’s website. Social media platforms were also used for promotion, including a Facebook event page and a YouTube video featuring the interview with the curator Liuqingqing Yang and the advisor Dr. Paul Stoesser.

In addition to the exhibition, an inventory of the Centre’s publications and productions was generated and would be archived for future use.
We had positive responses from various groups of audiences, including our stakeholders, the Centre’s community members, and the general public.

I'd like to thank Dr. Paul Stoesser and Professor Matthew Brower for their support and trust. I want to thank several members of the Centre for contributing their opinions during the consultation. Also, many thanks to the immediate community members who loaned their collections. I also want to thank Robarts Library for allowing us to realize this project using their resources and venue. Thanks to our communication coordinator’s hard work. Thanks to all our volunteer students who gave us their time and expertise for research and production.


Celebrate the theatrical and academic influence of the Drama Centre on a pan-national stage since 1966 and make the library into a stage.

history exhibit

drama, theatre, celebration, retrospective, stage, production, scholarship, props, transformation