Victoria Playhouse: Re(de)fining Space and Focus in Rural Prince Edward Island By George Belliveau and Graham Lea Prince Fdward Island's Victoria Playhouse celebrates its twentv-fifth season in the summer of 2006. Since 1981, the Playhouse, as it is locally known, has been producing theatre in the Victoria Communitv Hall, which inside looks like the in\erted interior oi a .ship, quite appropriate for a theatre a two-minute walk from fishing wharves. This cosv hall, built by Win Bradley between 1914 and 1916, has had a long history of activity. During the tw<j world wars, the Playhouse was used for "recruiting meetings, lectures, plays, concerts, suppers, [and] quilting bees" to help the war effort (Boswell 27). At other times, the Playhouse was used for "showers, farewells, joint political meetings, movies, Christmas [concerts], schtxjl closings, fashion parades, |and| music festivals," and it has seen performances by artists such as Anne Murray and Don Messer and His Islanders (27 8). However, it is as home f)f the Victoria Playhouse that the hall has had the most significant impact on the community over the past twenty-five years. During the 1970s, the hall was used for summer theatre, until "the communitv became unhappy with the work" of the company and decided "not to take them back" (Cole Cl). Later, Erskine Smith, who had been a member of that company, and his wife, Pat Smith, were approached to run the theatre. Smith surmised that because he and Pat had been there "for a couple of years and had children ... they trusted us" (qtd. in Cole C5). So, in I 98 I, the Smiths created the Victoria Playhouse, lncorpf)rated, and began producing summer repertory theatre. Since then, the Plavhouse, a small 1 54-seat theatre only a thirty-minute drive from much larger and technically superior theatres, has become a physical and cultural centre for the community, emerging as one ofthe principal economic engines keeping the fishing village thriving. When the Playhouse faced a near closure in 1998, an editorial in Charlottetown's Guardian described the theatre as "a godsend to the town where craft shops, tea-houses, and other outlets ha\e prospered as a result of the presence ofthe Plavhouse It is a gem most communities of this size can onlv dream uf" GEROGE BELLIVEAU AND GRAHAM LEA / © CTR 128 FALL 2006