Joseph Quesnel: Musical Interludes

Quesnel Dept: The playwright was Joseph Quesnel, one of Canada's first theatrical impresarios. Colas et Colinette was the first play to be written, as well as published, in Canada, and Quesnel both acted in it and wrote its musical interludes, according to Montreal Gazette. On Nov. 24, the company's first two plays were presented. They were comedies, but the cur of Notre Dame, Fran ois-Xavier Latour-D z ry, was not amused. Two days before the curtain went up, Latour-D z ry delivered a scathing sermon against the iniquities of the Th tre de Soci t in particular and theatre in general. Plays were "danger-ous and still prohibited by the Church," he fulminated and our anonymous reviewer was delighted. A new play entitled Colas et Colinette, ou le Bailli Dup , had just finished a one-month run, and the actors, the play itself and its author were all worthy of "a great and just encomium." Early in November 1789, Quesnel, another Frenchborn immigrant named Louis Dulongpr , and several others founded a company they called the Th tre de Soci t . Dulongpr 's house on St. Paul St. was fitted up as a theatre and, as painting was among his several callings, it was he who did the theatre's sets. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.