Ottawa Little Theatre, Community theatre in Downtown Ottawa, Canada.

The Ottawa Little Theatre is a community theatre on King Edward Avenue in downtown Ottawa, in a building it owns with 382 seats. It presents nine plays per season in three-week runs from late February to December, with volunteer directors, actors, designers and stage crew.

The company was founded in 1913 as the Ottawa Drama League, making it one of the oldest amateur theatre groups in Canada. A fire destroyed the building completely in 1970, but it was rebuilt and reopened within two years.

The Ottawa Little Theatre's name dates from its founding as the Ottawa Drama League in 1913. Its National One-Act Playwriting Competition, launched in 1937, continues today and has been won by Robertson Davies, John Murrell, Erika Ritter, Catherine Banks and Ken Mitchell. Every director, actor, designer and stagehand is a volunteer, and the building holds original photographs by Yousuf Karsh, who worked here in the 1930s and met his first wife, Solange, at the theatre.

The Ottawa Little Theatre owns its 382-seat house on King Edward Avenue and stages nine plays per season, each running three weeks, from late February to December. All directors, actors, designers and stage crew are volunteers, and income comes almost entirely from ticket sales and donations, so booking ahead is advisable. The website holds a searchable database of past productions with cast, crew and photographs.

The photographer Yousuf Karsh visited the theatre regularly in the 1930s and refined his approach to light by photographing its productions. Those early experiments helped shape the style that later made him one of the most recognized portrait photographers of the 20th century.