What's going on Downtown North Bay Vol.1 October 2013 | Page 28

Gateway Theatre Production, 1985

Heritage with Discovery North Bay
Written by: Sarah Aubertin and Judy Elston

The Discovery North Bay Museum has recently acquired an exciting new collection. The Gateway Theatre Guild has graciously
donated their scrapbooks dating back to 1948 and detailing nearly every performance and festival since then. The books
contain programs, newspaper articles, photographs, and posters.
Organized in North Bay in September 1948 the Gateway Theatre Guild began with a membership of 50. The first production
“Gateway Gaieties”, a musical review, was live on stage. The Guild was “launched primarily for the development of drama and
theatrical art in the North with costs of production born by membership”. In 1949 the first Northern Ontario drama festival
took place in Sudbury with seven groups from cities throughout the North. As the Gateway Theatre Guild evolved it brought
people from all over North Bay and gave them an opportunity to perform. The diversity of the group allowed for dramatic,
tragic, and comedic productions. Members paid the cost involved with productions but also received donations from groups
within the community. In 1974 while adjudicating Mr. Canino was full of praise for the people of the Guild commenting that
the group had impressed him in the amount and variety of work they had done in the past. He believed they were a hard
working group and the cast had a good mix of new actors and a core of experienced people.