Thousand and One First Nights, A

In 1951, a young actor-manager (Leslie Yeo), left a post-war England still manacled by the toughest currency restrictions in its history and, with $30 in his pocket, brought 13 professional actors and a scenic designer across the Atlantic to the closest point on the North American shore-St. John, Newfoundland. There, without sponsor or subsidy, he staged 26 different plays in 26 weeks and ended up the season with a profit. Over the next six years he firmly established Canada's first fully professional commercial regional theater. This is the story of that historic theatrical adventure, its crises and its triumphs and the many lives it changed.