Mitchell, Roy, 1884-1944

Roy Matthews Mitchell (4 February 1884 – 27 July 1944) was a Canadian-American theatre practitioner who played an important role in little theatre in Canada and the United States. He was involved in the creation and was the first artistic director of the Hart House Theatre at the University of Toronto, and was an influence on Vincent Massey, Herman Voaden and Mavor Moore. In 1974 Moore wrote "in 1929, Roy Mitchell was a voice crying in the near-wilderness of Canada" and called him "the seer who said it all on our own doorstep nearly half a century ago." A later scholar wrote that Mitchell's "vision ... did not fully come to pass in his lifetime, nor did it subsequently."