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Born in Edinburgh on December 12, 1936, Robert Doyle grew up in Canada and originally trained as a dancer and performed with the Winnipeg Ballet Company. After a knee injury effectively ended that career, he quickly changed focus to theatrical design, beginning the design of one production before he even left the hospital (“Order of Canada”). Realising he needed more training, he studied at the famous Wimbledon School of Fine Art in London focusing on civilian and military clothing of the 18th century.
Shortly after returning to Canada, he put this research to immediate use. Doyle became involved in 18th-century historical restorations of the Fortress of Louisburg on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. He trained and led a staff of designers to recreate the historical clothing worn at the Fortress.
Doyle’s experience at the Fortress made him realize the paucity of formal education and training in costume design in Canada. He taught at the University of Regina, and at Dalhousie University where, perhaps, he had his largest influence as founder of its costume studies program. The Department of Drama at Dalhousie came into being when the Drama Division of the Department of English separated into the new unit in 1968. By 1973, the Department of Drama began offering practical courses in addition to the theoretical ones, and within the next three years, the department was offering BA Honours degrees in streams—general, acting, scenography, and costume studies. Doyle had begun teaching costume studies at Dalhousie University in 1974 and two years later he had created the foundation for the new Costume Studies Program. He was central in it for the next twenty-three years.
Doyle was Neptune Theatre’s first Designer-in-Resident, so when Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo was in development Doyle received a strong recommendation from Neptune’s Artistic Director John Neville. Doyle remained involved designing costumes and sets for the Tattoo over the next two decades. Other commissions he took up included designing the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1999 Pan American Games in Winnipeg. According to an article in the Dal News, “He outfitted the cast of 6,000 in some 30,000 yards of multi-coloured, waterproof paper fabric ‘to create the seasons of Manitoba’” (Smulders).
He has published books on design and, in his later years, wrote a ballet based on paintings of Tom Thomson presented to Karen Kain, Artistic Director of the National Ballet of Canada (Smulders).
For his lifetime achievements in theatrical costume and set design as both an educator and an artist, Doyle was awarded an Order of Canada in 2017 (investiture in 2018).
Doyle died suddenly on November 13, 2019 in London, Ontario.
Sources:
Contents of the fonds.
“In Memoriam: Robert Doyle.” Saltwire. November 20, 2019. Accessed September 16, 2024. Available at https://www.saltwire.com/halifax/obituaries/robert-doyle-29983/.
“Robert Doyle: Obituary.” Stratford Beacon Herald (online). Accessed September 13, 2024. Available at https://stratfordbeaconherald.remembering.ca/obituary/robert-doyle-1077839668.
Smulders, Marilyn. “Order of Canada.” Dal News. April 12, 2008. Accessed September 13, 2024. Available at https://www.dal.ca/news/2008/04/21/doyle.html.