Maritime theatre community remembers Michael Bawtree for his contribution to the arts

Michael Bawtree, founder of the Atlantic Theatre Festival, is pictured. (Source: Dick Groot)

The Maritime theatre community is remembering Michael Bawtree, who passed away Saturday just before his 87th birthday.

Bawtree, who was born in Australia and raised in the United Kingdom, came to Canada in 1962.

He was known for his contribution to the arts community and founding The Atlantic Theatre Festival in Wolfville, N.S.

“Michael Bawtree is one of those people in Nova Scotia's theatre community who loomed large because he had large ideas,” said performer Bill Carr.

Carr fondly recalls his first introduction to Bawtree.

“So I met with this very proper British gentleman who told me that he wanted to start a major theater company in Nova Scotia, comparable to Stratford,” said Carr.

Carr says everyone who came in contact with Bawtree was impacted by his passing.

“There are those who dealt with him as students and worked with him. There are those of us who dealt with him professionally and worked with him. All of us have suffered a loss here,” he said.

According to Carr, there was some controversy at times in regards to how Bawtree ran the Atlantic Theatre Festival, but adds even in the failures lessons were learned.

“I mean, there are those who say, you know, maybe the money could have been used differently and why did he do such a huge thing at that the Atlantic Theatre Festival and why didn't he temper it? Because he wasn't a temperate man, he was a man who had a dream and went for it,” said Carr.

In addition to working as a professor at Acadia University, directing, and starting the Atlantic Theatre Festival, Bawtree was an author.

“I think he published both of his books, which are biographies,” said Carr.

“He lived as full a life as you can. Somebody said, ‘Eighty-six years old?’ I said, ‘Yeah, and he filled every single one of them.’”

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