OTL Blog

On Monday night over 50 masked protesters descended on City Hall for a Masquerade Ball protest – the Bal Masqué. Organized by an ad hoc collective known as Le Gros Bon Sens, the masked demonstration aimed to challenge the anti-mask bylaw the City of Montreal is attempting to pass as part of its larger “Public […]

Historically-speaking, Quebec City has always been somewhat of a military town. When “founded” by Samuel de Champlain in 1608 on the remains of the First Nations settlement of Stadacona, Quebec was actually designed as a military-style fortification. The site of numerous wars and battles that pitted the French against various First Nations, and later Britain, […]

Greening Duluth, an organization which hopes to see “a vibrant, green community in the heart of a thriving metropolis” and believes that raising awareness and consciousness is the way to achieve their goal on Duluth Street and the surrounding community is now taking another step towards achieving their goal by offering an Urban Gardening course […]

After it was announced here and other places that the city of Montreal was seeking to ban masks at protests, people opposed have not been silent and it seems that this issue will not go away. And why should it? This incursion on our rights to free expression has even garnered opponents in more conservative […]

Of all the projects OTL has created, Car Stories is most certainly the longest-running, at times has been the most controversial and if it wasn’t for the infringement Festival, a true viral phenomenon, it would undoubtedly be the best known. In a nutshell, Car Stories is a play containing several shorter plays, a piece of […]

Theatre activists, like actors in a theatre, rely on a gamut of artistic accessories – props, scenery, costumes, make up, and especially masks – to conduct performances on the streets, sometimes during demonstrations. Masks constitute important props in this theatrical arsenal, as they have the power to transform the actor into a different entity, which […]

In 2003, a group of New York City-based theatre artists got together in an attempt to organize a theatre-based city-wide protest against the war in Iraq.  The group stuck together and formed Theaters Against War, or THAW, a group whose goal is to nurture a pro-peace culture by standing up to attacks on civil liberties, […]

Anyone who has children, or works with them, can tell you that there is almost nothing worse than the death of a child.  There can be no excuse to subject society’s most vulnerable members to oppression and massacre, and the realisation that over 250 children have being killed during the assault on Gaza is enough […]

On Thursday afternoon a rally called Native Rights Under Lock & Key assembled outside the Montreal offices of Quebec Premier Jean Charest, on McGill College Avenue.   As security guards locked the doors to the glassy tower housing Charest’s offices, protesters unfurled a banner reading “Honour Your Word: Protect the Environment. Share the Land’s Wealth” and […]

Preceding yesterday’s presentation of an eviction notice by activists to the Israeli consulate in Montreal, a group of Jewish women were arrested for occupying the Israeli consulate in Toronto on Wednesday in protest of the Israeli attack on Gaza, among them were filmmaker BH Yael, psychanalyst Judith Deutsch and professor Judy Rebick. Rebick, a prominent […]