(photo credit: Dory Reimer)
The Pioneer
Elsa Bolam IS the history of Montreal English-language theatre
by Barbara Ford
Elsa Bolam grew up in Newcastle upon Tyne (known as Geordie country) in Northern England. Both parents worked office jobs unrelated to the arts but her sister, Margaret Dale, was a ballet dancer with the Sadler’s Wells Company, later the Royal Ballet, and Bolam remembers going to the theatre often from a young age.
She studied English Literature at the University of Leeds and while there, became involved with the student theatre group making sets and doing a bit of acting and directing. After Leeds, she continued her education at Durham University and then received her Master’s degree in Drama from Syracuse University, New York, thanks to a Fulbright Scholarship.
After returning to the UK, she continued to learn her craft working for two seasons at the Royal Shakespeare Company, first as an Assistant Stage Manager at Stratford, and later as an Assistant Director at the Aldwych Theatre (London). When ABC television ran a competition for young theatre directors, Bolam entered and won the prize: a year in repertory working as Assistant Director at the Theatre Royal, York. Following York, she free-lanced around the British Isles and directed and taught at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. For a year and a half she also directed television plays at the BBC in London.
