Biography | Peter Cullen — The First Class of Canada's National Theatre School Worked on This Street

People remember Peter Cullen as a voice. The training that made the voice usable started here.

Peter Claver Cullen was born in Montreal on 28 July 1941, to American parents Henry L. Cullen and Muriel McCann.

On 2 November 1960 the National Theatre School of Canada opened in rented rooms at the Canadian Legion building at 1191 rue de la Montagne, then still called Mountain Street.

Cullen was in the first English acting class.

The school had no campus of its own. Thirty-one students, English and French, worked weekdays from 8:45 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon on voice, movement, text and improvisation.

The first cohort finished in 1963. The school's own alumni list still carries his name in that acting class, next to people who stayed in Canadian theatre.

The Legion rooms did not last. In 1963 the school tried Place des Arts, was moved on within days, and reset at 407 boulevard Saint-Laurent.

O'Sullivan College occupies 1191 rue de la Montagne now.

The school later settled on rue Saint-Denis and, in 1978, bought the Monument-National on boulevard Saint-Laurent. That later home is not this pin.

Cullen left Montreal with Shakespeare, radio timing, and a voice already being used on air. Announcing work at CKGM followed, then Hollywood booths.

The first class is the fact this street still holds.

Photo: the later National Theatre School home at the Monument-National, via Wikimedia Commons. The 1960 Legion rooms no longer stand as a school.