Theater St. Thomas, St. Thomas University’s theatre company, has updated its constitution for the first time since 1994 during this year’s annual general meeting on Sept. 16.
Robin Whittaker, arts director of TST, said he saw how little the constitution represented TST’s methods, and after bringing it to the other executives’ attention they decided it was time for an update.
“It didn’t feel right as a society to have just this outdated constitution laying around,” director Alex Rioux said regarding Whittaker’s choices. “A lot of what was in the constitution was not how we were running things, so we wanted to go through the proper channels and amend that.”
Following its evaluation, the idea was brought to other active TST members during the annual general meeting. After discussion, the motion was voted unanimously in favour of its revision.
TST, by the constitution, is now deemed responsible for being St. Thomas’s official drama club, and creating an educational environment to help students develop necessary skills for understanding theatre production. On top of this, the constitution was expanded to reflect the more intricate roles of the individual executives, which included treasury, club management, event organization and creative choices in between executives.
Membership, a vague concept in the original format, was specified to include any part-time or full-time St. Thomas student who has or will be participating in an event or production. Membership status is determined by executives, but includes roles such as acting, backstage and technical work or working as an usher.
Those who do not fit all the criteria can visit public meetings as guests but cannot vote like full TST members.
Rioux expressed high hopes for the revision and saw diversity between executive roles, primarily with regards to creative choice, as being necessary to reflect in their rules. He said Whittaker better understood what plays were good for students to learn.
Regarding creative changes, Whittaker said, “You won’t see any changes in terms of programming. It’s really just everything we’ve been doing for the last several years. This constitution just describes and updates what we’ve been doing.”
Whittaker also said TST and St. Thomas Early English Drama Society would stay separate, purely for the purpose of maintaining diverse plays.
Theatre St. Thomas’s first play The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest is set to première Nov. 16 to Nov. 19 in the Black Box Theatre of Sir James Dunn Hall at 7:30 p.m., with a Saturday matinée at 2:00 p.m.
