The Caravan originally toured in large wagons pulled by Clydesdale draft-horses and performed all over BC, Alberta, & Ontario Canada and the West & East Coastal States of the US in a large, unique 700 seat Tensile Tent, The Cosmodome. 

Lithographs and Linocuts of Caravan Life on the Road: by Adriana Nans Kelder, the Caravan artistic director & designer

Catherine Hahn joined the Caravan in 1977 and has been involved with creating artworks, costumes, masks, and sets for the shows ever since. Here are her mural designs/paintings for the entrance banners to the original Caravan Horse Drawn Performance Enclosure…

Catherine Hahn joined the Caravan in 1977 and has been involved with creating artworks, costumes, masks, and sets for the shows ever since.

Here are her mural designs/paintings for the entrance banners to the original Caravan Horse Drawn Performance Enclosure…

Fundamental to the Caravan shows is the inherent manifestation of the value of co-operative work and participation. Believing that theatre can and should restore to people of a sense of their own worth and power, the Caravan strives to create a theatre of hope and celebration. Watch the film below to discover more. 

Traveling at two Clydesdale miles an hour, the Caravan, with its brightly painted wagons accompanied by a brass band and calliope calling one and all, made a spectacular entrance into parks, school yards, campuses, or pastures. The shows were staged in the eye-catching 80 ft tensile tent, the Cosmodrome, which was ringed with colourful murals depicting various scenes on the outside and inside walls. The wagons, placed within the Cosmodrome, were transformed into a variety of “sets” depicting the scenery of the show that was touring.

The Caravan traveled over 20,000 horse drawn miles from the ghost towns of British Columbia, to the city parks of San Francisco, from the seashore towns of Oregon to the desert communities of eastern Washington, from the streets of Toronto & Detroit to the malls of southern Florida, from the hospitals of Alberta to the school yards of New York State. In 1992, the Caravan created a spectacular seven hour show on the state of the earth’s environment, entitled “THE COMING”, with performances at the World Theatre Festival in Toronto, where the Caravan turned an obsolete coal generating plant into a massive set on Seven CP Train Cars & Hearse & other wild lands…

Caravan Horse Drawn Shows

“The work of Caravan Stage Company is legendary within the International theatre community. It is, and always has been about as culturally unique as it gets. No other company comes close to the scale and invention of Caravan’s theatre. The material this troupe creates and presents is special, epic & spectacular as befits the stage they play upon.”
– Jim Gerard, Past Executive Director, Toronto Arts Council

“In my opinion, the Caravan Stage Company is a special theatre company, unlike any other in the world. The Caravan is a national treasure.”
– Walter Learning, Director Canada Council for the Arts, 1977

“White Shadow” telling the Farm Family, “Don’t Sell the Farm”

“The Caravan is a travelling theatre at its theatrical and political best.”

– Chico California News & Reviews, 1985

“The Caravan Stage Company has achieved the small miracle of rescaling the world down to its own pace.”

– San Francisco Examiner, 1985

“The Caravan Stage Company has long been a strong and unique pillar in Canadian theatre. Nomadic, close to the ancients, collaborative, enchanting, startling, theatrically skilled in design and performance. Contact with them is like meeting a tribe that you feared was lost. They are inspiring on so many fronts.”

– Layne Coleman, Past Artistic Director Theatre Passe Muraille & Screenwriter, Canadian Film Center

“The Caravan fulfills the need for theatrical voices that speaks to the human and environmental crises that we all face. The Caravan is a company that in my humble opinion is constantly ahead of its time!”

– Heather Bratten, Artistic Director, Stephenville Theatre Festival

“The Caravan artists are top notch, inventive, dedicated and highly talented in many artistic disciplines. The Caravan shows deal with themes of important and relevant social & environmental issues, while combining serious drama with spectacle & circus, thereby making it a show for all ages.”

– Rose Stella, Principal & Artistic Director, Center for Indigenous Theatre