Citadel Theatre
Edmonton's glass-walled theatre complex, one of the largest regional producing theatres in Canada.
The Citadel was founded in 1965 by the lawyer Joseph Shoctor and four colleagues, who took over a disused Salvation Army citadel on 102 Street, from which the company took its name. It moved in 1976 into a purpose-built complex designed by Barton Myers, whose red brick and sloping glass walls turn the foyers into a public winter garden. A large extension in 1984 added further auditoria and the Lee Pavilion, a glazed indoor garden with a pool and mature trees that links the theatres together.
The complex now contains five performance spaces: the 685-seat Shoctor Theatre, the thrust-stage Maclab Theatre, the flexible Rice Theatre, the Zeidler Hall cinema and the outdoor Tucker Amphitheatre. The company produces a subscription season of roughly eight or nine productions running from September to June, mixing classic drama, new Canadian writing and large-scale musicals, and its annual staging of A Christmas Carol has been an Edmonton fixture for decades.
Highlights
- Five performance spaces including the 685-seat Shoctor Theatre
- Lee Pavilion indoor garden under a glass roof
- Annual staging of A Christmas Carol
- Barton Myers's sloping glass street frontage of 1976
