He was a recipient of the Order of Canada, creator of the CBC evening news broadcast, which would go on to become The National and he is also considered one of the great pioneers of Canadian theatre having created many productions for the stage. Still few Canadians know the name Mavor Moore.
Local author and Okotoks cultural and historical services team leader Allan Boss is trying to shine a spotlight on Moore with a new book tracking his Canadian cultural legacy.
Boss said he felt compelled to write “Identifying Mavor Moore: A Historical and Liberal Study” because he personally knew the playwright who died in 2006. In fact, Boss considers the man his mentor.
“I was a student at the University of Victoria in the writing department,” Boss said. “He came in as a guest speaker. He was introduced with this long list of accomplishments and I was sort of surprised I had never really heard of him because I had studied a lot about Canadian culture. I ended up doing a direct studies course with him as my professor during my undergrad.”
After his experience with Moore as a teacher, as well as play workshop, the two would stay in touch over the years with the older figure often counseling his younger protégé. Later as Boss was working towards a master’s degree in Montreal he continually saw Moore’s name in the historical theatre material he had chosen to study.
“Everything said Mavor was a writer, a director, an author, a television producer, an art administrator and on and on and on,” he said. “But nobody ever said what he did. There was all these big open terms but nobody ever specified who Mavor Moore was.”
Boss said once he decided to go for a PhD in drama at the University of Calgary he targeted his mentor and advisor as the focus of his thesis.
“I phoned him and we had some discussions and he agreed he would allow me to do it,” said Boss. “I went to the U of C and started to work on him. What I discovered was he did everything. In fact, there was a rumour about him in the 70s, when he was incredibly active in Toronto that he wasn’t a real person; that the name Mavor Moore was actually a made up name for a group of artists that were working together.”
In the pages of “Indentifying Mavor Moore” Boss firmly establishes it was indeed one enigmatic man writing and doing all the things others perceived were completed by many. In explaining the expanse of Moore’s impact on Canadian culture the book challenges some previously held assertions of who was responsible for what in Canadian art circles.
“Identifying Mavor Moore” is available online including amazon.ca. With the book out, Boss is still not done shining a spotlight on his mentor. A followup work “Discovering Mavor Moore: An Exploration and Eight Works for the Stage” will be released next summer. The volume will be a collection of Moore’s plays, operas and musicals with introductions by Boss.
