MICHAEL BAWTREE

COLIN BERNHARDT

MICHAEL BAWTREE was born in Australia. He was raised and educated in Britain, and came to Canada in 1962. In his long and varied career he has been a playwright, director, journalist, educator and actor, and an initiator of many new and original artistic projects from British Columbia to Nova Scotia – where he now lives. His creations show the breadth of his interests:  a children's book about Nova Scotia's hero Joe Howe, a play about the Russian revolution, a book on Music Theatre, CDs of 'Three Men In A Boat' and 'A Christmas Carol', and two volumes of his autobiography. Now, in 2021, he has published the book of his stage production, The Pegasus Bridge Show, with which he toured the U.K., raising funds for veterans.

After a blossoming career as an actor, at the Stratford Festival and elsewhere, Colin Bernhardt began to make his name throughout Canada as an inspired and much loved teacher of acting, voice and speech: first in Toronto, and subsequently at the Banff Centre and at Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia. For over twenty years he returned to Banff each year as a member of the Writers Studio faculty, working with hundreds of Canada's writers. Colin Bernhardt succumbed to cancer in 2012. Miriam Waddington praised him for his 'generosity of soul', and poet SMSteele remembered him as 'one of those people one thinks immortal.' ​​