1. The Monument-National in the City
2. A Community Under Threat in a Changing World
3. The Early Years: the Monument’s "Open Arms"
4. The Monument-National and the Women’s Movement
5. The Monument-National: A Breeding Ground of New Ideas and a Multiethnic Cultural Centre
6. On Stage at the Monument: Innovation and Avant-Garde
7. On Stage at the Monument: Eclecticism and Popular Success
8. The Long Slide Downhill
9. Renaissance: Rebirth, Centenary

6. On Stage at the Monument: Innovation and Avant-Garde

From 1895 on, the main auditorium of the Monument-National hosted its first concerts and theatrical shows. Yiddish theatre was born there in 1896, the biggest Anglophone stars of North American theatre appeared on its stage, as did the top personalities on the operatic and international music scene, such as Québec opera singer Emma Albani (Emma Lajeunesse) and pianist Ignacy Ian Paderewski.

While the Monument-National was the most important venue for Yiddish theatre outside New York until the late 1940s, it also played an essential role in the development of Francophone theatre in Québec. It was at the Monument-National and in its theatrical troupe, the Soirées de famille — founded in 1898 — that the pioneers of Francophone professional theatre in Québec received their training. The first mass-audience Québec shows, like La Passion by Germain Beaulieu with Julien Daoust, were created at the Monument, attracting as many as 10,000 paying spectators per week. Thanks to the support of the Association Saint-Jean-Baptiste, the Monument-National was much more than a place for producing and performing theatrical works, it was also a remarkable centre of artistic innovation and experimentation. Starting in the early 1920s, small local experimental groups (like Les Compagnons de la petite scène and Théâtre intime) or their foreign counterparts (like the Vilna, the avant-garde Lithuanian group that acted in Yiddish) brought modern theatre to Montréal.