A Theatre in the Woods

Théâtre de Verdure is a setting straight out of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream: a thespian’s paradise in the middle of a lush woodland. Since 1956, the open-air stage has occupied an island in the middle of Montreal’s Parc La Fontaine, exposing park-goers to regular, accessible (read: free) and dazzling productions.

In 2000, a much-needed reno replaced the original modernist set with a bare-bones structure, more scaffolding than stage, but soon that too got covered in graffiti. By 2014, the venue had fallen into disrepair and was forced to close down. Three years passed before the city decided the Verdure’s shows must go on—without interfering with the park’s natural beauty. They tapped local architecture firm Lemay for a redesign.

Lemay’s architects, whose past projects include the Espace 67 historic site renewal and the skatepark at Montreal’s Olympic Park, consulted everyone from park maintenance workers to local theatre directors. As it turned out, the ideal structure would be a stage that appeared to barely exist at all. 

The new building was constructed almost entirely out of steel, including roughly 150 pre-painted pipes made by a Montreal-based craftsman. It takes on a different form depending on the angle from which it’s viewed. From the side, the pipes resemble the folds of an accordion. Head on, it looks like a classic black-box theatre, with stages left and right virtually disappearing to avoid distracting the audience from the performance at hand. (In 2024, the jury for the Governor General’s Medal in Architecture praised the building’s “immaterial presence.”) When it’s not populated with actors and musicians, the back of the stage can retract, creating an effect like a shadow box framing the lake: a view akin to Georges Seurat’s pointillist masterpiece A Sunday on La Grande Jatte.

Verdure means “greenery” in French, so the architects were understandably keen on preserving the structure’s idyllic surroundings. A team of landscapers transplanted nearby trees and planted sweet gale and lace shrub, plus 34 new trees, which will flourish into a healthy, stage-framing canopy over time. Since 2022, the updated stage has showcased jazz quartets, circus performers and, naturally, plenty of plays. Even some Shakespeare.