Natalie Rewa

Natalie Rewa is professor emerita at the Dan School of Drama and Music where, when it was still the Queens Drama Department, she was the first female full professor. At Queens she was involved in curriculum development, theatre history as experiential investigatory practice, storytelling and script development with puppets and marionettes, a senator, and a Faculty Association rep.

Natalie was editor and then managing editor of Canadian Theatre Review from 1987-1995, during which time she developed special issues on scenography, theatre for adolescents, theatre and ethnicity, transformations/multimedia, words on stage, Canada on the Pacific Rim, Indigenous theatre, theatre in the North, actor training, and Black theatre. Her book, Scenography in Canada was an important addition to Canadian theatre research as the first study of scenography in Canada. in which she examined the work of seven of the country's important theatre designers. Described by one reviewer as an important and “handsome, lusciously illustrated’ volume, it used extensive images and contributions from the designers about their work along with her own analysis. She contributed to the books Potentials of Space and Performing Architectures: Projects, Practices, and Pedagogies, was contributing editor to Sources of Dramatic Theatre, volume 2, editor of Design and Scenography (Critical Perspectives vol 15), and has written many articles for a variety of different journals.

On the practical side of her work she was artistic director of the on-site installations for the first edition of World Stage curator of the exhibit Architecture, Visual traces and Material artifacts, both at Harbourfront. She was the theatre historian as part of the Elgin/Winter Garden Restoration Team, developed a program on making and using large puppets from recycled materials for parade performance, co-curated the exhibition Imprints of Process/De l’idée au dessin for the Canadian delegation and onsite programming at the Prague Quadrennial 2007 and was co-editor of that catalogue. She has worked with the International Federation of Theatre Research Scenography Working Group and Architecture Working Group, the American Society for Theatre Research as a contributor/member of their Scenography Working Group, with the East European Working Group and with Critical Costume, “an international platform to promote research and practice on the interdisciplinary study of costume.

Says Natalie, “My scholarship takes many forms, all of them have had to do with encouraging interaction with artists and a community of reception.”

Thank you for everything you have done, what you continue to do as an independent scholar, and for being such a good friend and mentor to so many.