Richard Courtney, drama teacher, theatre scholar and leading international expert in children's drama, was born in Newmarket, England on 4 June 1927 and was educated at Culford School and the University of Leeds.
Between 1948 and 1952 Courtney studied at Leeds with Shakespeare scholar G. Wilson Knight and Pirandello scholar and translator Frederick May. While there, he directed and appeared in a number of theatre productions and upon graduation continued his this endeavor with the Arts Theatre in Leeds and the Rep Theatre in Yorkshire.
On 21 December 1953, he married Rosemary Gale.
From 1956 to 1960, he played various roles on BBC radio. Between 1952 and 1959 he taught drama at schools in England before becoming Senior Lecturer in Drama at Trent Park College of Education in 1959, a position he would retain until 1967. From 1968 to 1971, he was Associate Professor of Theatre at the University of Victoria, British Columbia and was Professor of Drama from 1971 to 1974 at the University of Calgary. While in Calgary, Courtney also directed theatre and served as President of the Canadian Child and Youth Drama Association as well as being an advisor to the Minister of Culture, Andre Fortier.
In 1974, he was appointed Professor of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and the University of Toronto Graduate Centre for Drama. At the latter he worked with Peter McLaren, one of the leading architects of critical pedagogy. He maintained these positions until his retirement in 1995. Dr. Robert Gardner, one of Professor Courtney's doctoral students, remembered his contact with Richard during the eighties. "Professor Courtney was considered a rather eccentric figure. He seemed constantly dressed in green. He had a full beard and often wore a wide brimmed hat. His work, Play, Drama, and Thought, had earned him an international reputation and students from all over the world sought him out. He was an incredibly kind and patient teacher and he delighted in assisting students with slightly off-beat thesis proposals. He certainly was one of the most popular professors at the Ontario Institutes for Studies in Education. Although he was a modest man, it was clear to many of his doctoral candidates that he was a gifted teacher and scholar."
In 1975, he traveled to New Mexico to research the dramatic rituals of the Hopi and the Navajo Nations. He visited the University of Melbourne in 1970 and 1974 and was a Visiting Fellow in the Spring of 1979 at the Melbourne State College, Victoria.
Above all Richard Courtney was a well-respected drama theorist. He wrote extensively on the subject and has roughly one hundred published works to his name.
In addition, he was also responsible for numerous reports and journal articles touching on such subjects as educational drama, drama therapy, arts education, criticism and the history of drama. Courtney lectured extensively in Australia, Canada, the UK and the US. He was President of the Canadian Conference of the Arts, 1973-1976 and Chairman of the National Inquiry into Arts and Education in Canada, 1975-1979.
Richard Courtney died on Saltspring Island, British Columbia on 16 August 1997.