HERBERT WHITTAKER: A THEATRE LIFE

Jonathan Rittenhouse

The author provides a photo-essay and chronology highlighting fifty years of work in Canadian theatre as critic, designer, director and spokesman for the arts.

L'auteur fournit un essai photographique et chronologique qui rehausse les cinquantes années de travail accompli par le théâtre canadien au point de vue du critique, du metteur en scène, du directeur et du porte-paroles pour les arts.

Herbert Whittaker, now critic emeritus of the Toronto Globe and Mail, has been devoted to the theatre in general and to the support of Canadian theatrical ventures, in particular, since the 1930s. Though he has yet to appear as an actor, he has certainly been involved in every other aspect of theatrical life from backstage crew member, to designer, director, playwright, critic, and arts board committee member. Innumerable actors in Montreal, Toronto, London, New York, Paris, and most other cities with a theatre have been appraised by the critic; and countless actors, a veritable Who's Who of Canadian Equity, have been either choreographed, costumed, or placed in some imaginative setting by the designer-director. In this brief essay, and the complementary chronology of his career that follows, I hope to put in some perspective the contribution that Mr Whittaker has made to Canadian theatre through fifty years of commitment and involvement.

In Montreal, where Herbert Whittaker was born in 1911, he became a participant in a number of school and little theatre groups during the thirties. At first as a designer and later as a director- designer he worked on approximately thirty shows for the Montreal Repertory Theatre (MRT), the Everyman Players, the 16-30 Club, West Hill High School, and the YM-YWHA Players. At the same time he settled down at the Montreal Gazette as a junior movie and theatre critic. During this period he received a great deal of praise for his imaginative sets and colorful costumes which were in contrast to the stolid or unimaginative designs of other little theatre productions; and a number of these efforts were definite highlights in Montreal's lively amateur theatre world.

The first Everyman of the Everyman Players in 1933 was such a success that it was repeated later in the year, and though all work of the group was done anonymously, those in the little theatre world were aware of Mr Whittaker's design contribution. In 1935 Thomas Archer, theatre and music critic of the Gazette, commented favourably on the group's The Spanish Miracle:

The real triumph lies in the staging and costuming which are often exceedingly beautiful.... These costumes are superb and there is perhaps only one man in the city who could have designed them.¹

Later that year Charles Rittenhouse's production of Romeo and Juliet at West Hill High School, for which Mr Whittaker was designer, received this praise:

What is quite probably the best production of a Shakespeare play done here in the last ten years was seen at Westhill School Thursday ... And then imagine a setting impressionist in type, exquisitely colored and lighted . . . ²

One has no hesitation in recording that their "Romeo and Juliet" was a joy to behold.³

As designer and then director-designer of the 16-30 Club, Mr Whittaker helped take this group of young Montrealers to three Dominion Drama Festival (DDF) Finals (1936, 1938, 1939) with out of the ordinary plays and productions. At the 1938 Regionals adjudicator Malcolm Morley praised Festival In Time of Plague as 'beautifully staged and picturesque, and ... all told it was effective theatre".' ⁴

By the end of the decade he had become well-known to Montreal theatre-goers as designer and director as he skilfully produced shows on the invariably cramped stages of Montreal's literally 'little' theatres. A 1939 16-30 Club production of G.B. Shaw's Heartbreak House, which Mr Whittaker designed and directed, earned these typical reviews:

The direction throughout was excellent and the cast handled themselves with rare skill on the small stage⁵

Direction, staging, acting, all deserve to rank high in the record of the non-professional theatre in Montreal.⁶

In the forties he eventually became the Gazette's theatre critic and also got the opportunity to flex his designing and directorial muscles on Montreal's larger stages. He was the main designer of the Lakeshore Summer Theatre which attempted in 1940 and 1941 to do seasons of summer stock using local actors, directors, and designers. Here he designed Philip Barry's Holiday in 1940 and directed Shaw's Candida in 1941. He also saw his designs for the Montreal Negro Theatre Guild's 1942 production of Marc Connelly's Green Pastures used in His Majesty's, the major theatre in town.

From 1945-47 Mr Whittaker also became designer for the Shakespeare Society of Montreal and their full-scale productions at the ample Moyse Hall on t e campus of McGill University. For the 1945 Much Ado About Nothing he received these accolades:

...

Herbert Whittaker's extraordinarily effective setting and costumes that constituted a genuine work of art.⁷

In addition to designing the setting, Herbert Whittaker designed the costumes and seldom is such an ingenious variety of design and color seen on a Montreal stage.⁸

At the MRT he was able to test his dual skills as designer and director on such plays as Rodney Ackland's The Old Ladies, Eugene O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness!, John van Druten's version of I Remember Mama, and Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie. While at the YM-YWHA he did such important plays as Robert Sherwood's There Shall Be No Night, Anton Chekbov's The Cherry Orchard, Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth, and S. Ansky's The Dybbuk. This last play was produced for the 1948 DDF Regionals and won these remarks from adjudicator Robert Speaight:

The lighting used in The Dybbuk is the finest I have seen employed on a Canadian stage ... the sets have been a delight to took at and the staging has been truly marvelous.⁹

In 1949 he left Montreal and the Gazette for the post of theatre and movie critic at the Toronto Globe and Mail, and from 1952 through to his retirement in 1975 he was the theatre critic solely. In the fifties he established, as he had done in Montreal, strong and lasting links with various acting companies most of them more or less affiliated with the University of Toronto - Trinity College, Victoria College, and the University Alumnae. With the last he produced a number of polished productions which fared well at the Central Ontario Drama League (CODL) Regionals and at the DDF Finals.

At the 1951 Final Jose Ruben, the adjudicator, praised the Alumnae's production of Shaw's In Good King Charles' Golden Days:

All the moods were reflected intelligently and in a clear-cut manner, he said....
    The first of the two sets, which showed the interior of Isaac Newton's study was an excellent reflection of the period.
    Mr Ruben found the colors soft and some of the groupings 'suggested old colored prints'.¹⁰

In the 1953 Final adjudicator Pierre Lefevre found Mr Whittaker's direction of the Alumnae in T.S. Eliot's The Family Reunion 'very distinguished' and the production as a whole 'one which could hold its own with any performance in any country." ¹¹

Herbert Whittaker was also an ardent critic and supporter of the burgeoning professional theatre in Ontario, chronicling in the Globe and Mail the exciting efforts of the Jupiter Theatre, the New Play Society, the Stratford Festival and its offshoot the Canadian Players, the Crest Theatre, and the various summer theatres that developed in the vacation districts of Ontario. He was also artistically involved in some of these endeavours: directing and designing the Jupiter Theatre's opening production, Galileo by Bertolt Brecht; and directing the gala première of Robertson Davies' A Jig for the Gypsy, the first production of the Crest Theatre's first full season. Both productions were favourably received. For Galileo Mr Whittaker's experience on the small stages of Montreal helped him with his utilization of the tiny Royal Ontario Museum stage. E.G. Wagner of the Globe and Mail noted:

Herbert Whittaker's direction does full justice to the play's virtues, its consistency and clarity in driving home the crucial point and it strives hard to detract from its faults.... It also achieves a miracle of intelligent economy in overcoming the physical limitations of the small museum stage.¹²

For A Jig for the Gypsy the same reviewer had this to say:

Herbert Whittaker's direction is strong on fluidity and insight. By clever movements, flawless timing, and superb lighting it emphasizes the play's virtues. ¹³

In the sixties he kept up his tradition of directing-designing firsts by being invited by both major universities in Toronto - York University and the University of Toronto - to inaugurate their new drama programs. Molière's Don Juan opened Burton Auditorium at York in the winter of 1966, and in the fall of that year Aristophanes' Lysistrata was the première production of the Graduate Centre for the Study of Drama. He continued to do other university, Alumnae, and little theatre shows - Brecht's Trumpets and Drums, O'Neill's A Touch of the Poet, Chekhov's The Three Sisters, George Ryga's The Ecstasy of Rita Joe, a double bill of N.F. Simpson's The Hole and Harold Pinter's The Room, Simpson's A Resounding Tinkle, Pinter's The Caretaker, and many others. But an undoubted highlight of this period was his design for the 1961-62 tour of the Canadian Players' productions of King Lear and Christopher Fry's The Lady's Not For Burning. This was his third time designing Lear, an unusual if not unique claim to make; and for this production, directed by David Gardner and starring William Hutt, Mr Whittaker gave the play an imaginative Eskimo context.

In the seventies and eighties he has been less visible on the theatrical scene since his retirement from the Globe and Mail in 1975, but he has not by any means become less involved. He has been and is on various theatre and arts board committees (National Arts Centre Corporation, Shaw Festival, Theatre Canada) and he has been awarded such distinctions as an honorary D Litt from York University in 1971 and the Officer of the Order of Canada in 1976.

The critics or adjudicators who judged Herbert Whittaker's directorial work over the years, though they might criticize the pacing or a particular interpretation, comment again and again on the integrity and sincerity of the productions. The innovative quality of the sets, the skilful use of limited space, as well as his spectacularly colourful or subtly shaded costumes are the hallmarks of a Whittaker design according to most of the reviewers, though occasionally the colours or set overwhelm the production:

As for the setting, especially when the limited amount of space is taken into consideration, one is lost in admiration. The typical English inn is there to the life, lighted and furnished in such fashion that the atmosphere maintains itself of itself.¹⁴
The Man With a Load of Mischief

The Seven Deadly Sins are presented in gorgeous array. This is really a triumph of costume designing and one of the big scenes of the production.¹⁵
Doctor Faustus

And this is where hats come off to Mr. Whittaker and the group for their courage in undertaking The Cherry Orchard and for their devotedness in spending, as was obvious, months of painstaking preparation ... If there was one man in the Y.M.H.A. Auditorium last night who understood Checkhov and the kind of theatre he imagined, it must have been Mr. Whittaker.¹⁶
The Cherry Orchard

Mr. Whittaker has not only directed the play expertly but has designed what is surely one of the most imaginative settings to be seen on a local stage.... In addition design and execution lend an extraordinary illusion of space, not to mention a fine color sense aided by clever lighting.¹⁷
The Old Ladies

... Mr. Whittaker, who designed the setting, made possible a surprising continuity, though sometimes the technical methods employed in order to achieve the illusion of almost instantaneous change of scene - the moving backwards and forwards of a huge sliding panel at the rear of the stage, - proved not a little disconcerting and disturbing.¹⁸
King Lear (1946)

And despite the many faults in the production, one cannot but feel pleased that Mr. Whittaker accepted the challenge and that we had the chance to see a fine play.¹⁹
I Remember Mama

Herbert Whittaker has endeavoured to provide a sort of symbolic surrealistic setting. On one side of the stage a huge mass of formless stone was apparently intended to convey the impression of the Duke of Albany's castle, but the rest of the tangled structure which occupied far too much space on the stage was mainly used to facilitate entries and exits.²⁰
King Lear (1953)

He appreciated the grey of the set and the costumes of the characters and pointed out how they contributed to the classic, static quality of the play.²¹
The Family Reunion

The production, directed by Herbert Whittaker, inspires respect rather than enthusiasm for its care and integrity. The details of the Delaney household, the sordid ones no less than the humourous ones, are taken care of aptly and thoughtfully and there is some sound and clean acting.
    Yet the drama is dissected rather than exploded, rationalized rather than felt. Such low-voltage treatment can at best turn up interesting twists in a well-written script, but it must fall short of creating the unbearable tension between hope and despair, lust and frustration.²²
Come Back, Little Sheba

The setting, designed by the director, was at first sight a little startling in its bare cardboard economy, but as the plot unfolded it proved an effective and practical frame for a story in which the inner drama takes precedence over visible action.²³
Electra

Herbert Whittaker has chosen to set the play in the Far North, and to costume the actors in garments related to those of Eskimos. His set - an ice-grey cyclorama with horizontal dark green stripes and a white sun, along with iceberg-colored ramps -was servicable but constricting.²⁴
King Lear (1961)

Herbert Whittaker's production skilfully communicated the essentials of both the morality and the comedy. A large and youthful cast performed with energy and sincerity.²⁵
Lysistrata

A notable feature of Mr Whittaker's career as a director-designer has been his commitment to the classics: Lysistrata (1966), two Everymans (1933, 1936), 3 Lears (1946, 1953, 1961), two Much Ados (1945, 1953), two Romeo and Juliets (1935, 1947), The Taming of the Shrew (1937), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1934), Dr Faustus (1940), Tartuffe (1952), and Don Juan (1966). Furthermore he has been devoted to the works of the premier playwrights of the modern period. He has designed and directed all four of Chekhov's masterpieces - The Seagull (1940), The Cherry Orchard (1945), Uncle Vanya (1955), The Three Sisters (1963); as well he has directed Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts (1945) and directed and designed Peer Gynt (1955). Shaw has certainly been one of his life-long favorites; The Dark Lady of the Sonnets (1936), two Arms and the Man (one in English - 1936 - and one in French - 1946), Saint Joan (1938), Heartbreak House (1939), two Candidas (1941, 1946), In Good King Charles' Golden Days (1951), You Never Can Tell (1953), and Back to Methusaleh (1974). He has directed-designed two of Brecht's plays, Galileo (1951) and Trumpets and Drums (1963), Jean Giraudoux's The Enchanted (1951) and Electra (1957), Samuel Beckett's Endgame (1959), and Luigi Pirandello's The Rules of the Game (1977). He has also designed T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral (1937), and directed-designed The Family Reunion (1953) and The Cocktail Party (1982).

One can also tote up a goodly list of important mainstream American dramas directed and/or designed by Mr Whittaker over the past fifty years: Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth (1946) and The Alcestiad (1978); Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie (1949) and A Streetcar Named Desire (1955); Eugene O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness! (1948) and A Touch of the Poet (1965); and such popular classics as The Royal Family of Broadway (1933,1948), Holiday (1940), Stage Door (1942), Green Pastures (1942), Watch on the Rhine (1943), Biography (1947), The Little Foxes (1947), I Remember Mama (1948), and Come Back, Little Sheba (1956).

He has also been involved in producing and promoting Canadian plays, usually premiering such efforts as George M. Brewer's The Holy Grail (1934) and The Spanish Miracle (1935), Janet McPhee's Divinity in Montreal (1939), Bus to Nowhere (1940), and Jupiter in Retreat (1942), Robertson Davies' King Phoenix (1950) and A Jig for the Gypsy (1954), Norman Williams' To Ride a Tiger (1956), Mary Jukes' Every Bed Is Narrow (1956), Jack Gray's Emmanuel XOC (1965), and Jack Cunningham's Aperitif (1968). But he probably helped most in promoting Canadian theatre in its pre-professional days by supporting the Dominion Drama Festival as participant, critic, and organizer. Five of his productions went to the DDF Finals before he became a member of the Executive Committee in 1957, and many of the people he directed in these amateur productions went on to make a mark in the professional world in Toronto, New York, and London.

Through fifty years (so far) of criticizing, advising, cajoling, coaching, measuring, drawing, deadlining, and observing, Herbert Whittaker has earned both the awards and the life-long friends that are his. Far from suffering the usual fate of critics - to be secretly or openly hated or, worse yet, ignored as irrelevant by theatre people - he became an integral and welcome participant in the theatre communities of Montreal and Toronto. Such a contribution to the theatrical life of one's time, partaking of both the critical and the creative, is indeed rare.

HERBERT WHITTAKER: A THEATRE LIFE

Jonathan Rittenhouse

1 T.A., ''Spanish Miracle' Played In Church,' Montreal Gazette 23 April 1935, p 19
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2 Untitled review, 'West Hill's Production of "Romeo and Juliet",' Montreal Gazette 7 December 1935, p 11
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3 D.M.L., 'Delightful Production of "Romeo and Juliet" By West Hill Students,' Montreal Star 6 December 1935, p 26
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4 Untitled article, 'Sixteen-Thirty Group To Represent Montreal At Dominion Festival,' Montreal Star 19 March 1938, p 6
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5 G.H.A., '16-30 Players Do Fine Job,' Montreal Star 21 November 1939, p 8
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6 Thomas Archer, 'Heartbreak House Admirably Done,' Montreal Gazette 22 November 1939, p 3
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7 Thomas Archer, ''Much Ado' Proves Sumptuous Show,' Montreal Gazette 18 May 1945, p 3
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8 Sydney Johnson, '"Much Ado About Nothing" Given Fine Performance,' Montreal Star 18 May 1945, p 14
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9 Photo caption, Montreal Gazette 26 February 1949, p 20
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10 Kay Rex, 'Toronto Alumnae Club Praised For Handling Shaw Play Well,' Toronto Globe and Mail 19 May 1951, p 10
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11 Herbert Whittaker, 'Show Business,' Toronto Globe and Mail 8 May 1953, p 14
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12 E.G. Wagner, 'Jupiter Group Opens Season With Galileo,' Toronto Globe and Mail 15 December 1951, p 8
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13 E.G. Wagner, 'The Gypsy in Barbara Shines in Davies Play,' Toronto Globe and Mail 15 September 1954, p 13
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14 T.A., 'Repertory Group Opens New Season,' Montreal Gazette 15 November 1934, p 6
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15 Untitled review, '"Doctor Faustus" Given in Church,' Montreal Gazette 8 April 1940, p 3
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16 Thomas Archer, "Cherry Orchard' Seen at Y.M.H.A.,' Montreal Gazette 15 January 1945, p 3
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17 Thomas Archer, ''The Old Ladies' Is Mild Thriller,' Montreal Gazette 5 April 1946, p 3
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18 S. Morgan-Powell, 'Local Production Most Interesting Experiment,' Montreal Star 7 May 1946, p 22
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19 Untitled review, 'Van Druten Play at Moyse Hall,' Montreal Star 26 May 1948, p 6
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20 S. Morgan-Powell, 'Colicos Scores; Tragedy Is Not for Open-Air Theatre,' Montreal Star 13 August 1953, pp 30-31
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21 Herbert Whittaker, 'Show Business,' Toronto Globe and Mail 8 May 1953, p 14
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22 E.G. Wagner, 'Sheba of Crest inspires Respect For Its Integrity,' Toronto Globe and Mail 7 March 1956, p 8
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23 E.G. Wagner, 'Post-Freudian Electra Seen Daring Attempt,' Toronto Globe and Mail 18 January 1957, p 10
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24 Ralph Hicklin, 'King Lear Ranges From Good to Bad,' Toronto Globe and Mail 25 October 1961, p 10
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25 Urjo Kareda, 'Lysistrata has energy, sincerity,' Toronto Globe and Mail 22 October 1966, p 19
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CHRONOLOGY
The following is a listing of major productions and events in Herbert Whittaker's theatrical and journalistic career in Toronto and Montreal.

1933
April
HW receives his first designing credit for Donald Wetmore and the Westmount Dramatic Club's presentation of Kaufman and Ferber's The Royal Family of Broadway.
HW begins his long association with the Everyman Players, led by George M. Brewer, by designing the costumes and lighting for their first production - Everyman. The Montreal group performed one play a year (1933-1940) during the Easter season at the Church of the Messiah.

1934
March
HW begins his association with the young Montreal director, Charles Rittenhouse, and Shakespeare by designing A Midsummer Night's Dream for a West Hill High School production.

November
HW designs his first mainstage production for Martha Allan and the Montreal Repertory Theatre's (MRT) The Man with a Load of Mischief by Ashley Dukes. This production is staged in the ballroom of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.

1935
April
HW designs George M. Brewer's original play about the mystic Ramon Lull, The Spanish Miracle, in the style of El Greco for an Everyman production.

December
HW designs costumes and an innovative unit set for West Hill High School's much praised production of Romeo and Juliet.

1936
March
HW begins his long association with the YM-YWHA Players (1936-48) by designing their production of Kaufman and Hart's Once in a Lifetime.

March and April
HW is resident designer for Montreal's 16-30 Club (1936-40). He designs an atmospheric set for a production of Judge Lynch by J. William Rogers at the Regional Dominion Drama Festival (DDF). This production goes to the DDF Final at the Ottawa Little Theatre where adjudicator Harley Granville-Barker commends both the acting and the lighting.

1937
HW does signed movie reviews for the Montreal Gazette as well as some reviewing of ballet, amateur theatre, and night club shows.

1938
March and May
HW makes a successful debut as director and designer for a 16-30 Club production of Festival in Time of Plague by Alexander Pushkin. The Russian short story is translated by Irena Groten of the Pushkin Society of Montreal and dramatized by the group. The show wins the DDF Regional, and Marjorie Brewer wins the best actress award there.

1939
March and April
HW follows up success as director-designer at 1938 DDF with a well-received production of another original play. The 16-30 Club's production of Montrealer Janet McPhee's Divinity in Montreal, about Sarah Bernhardt, wins the Regional. At the London, Ontario Final the club wins the Sir Barry Jackson Challenge Trophy for best production of a Canadian play; as well, Betty Taylor wins the best actress award.

1940
In addition to his other duties at the Gazette, HW writes a column for the radio page every Friday.

July and August
HW and Douglas Burns Clarke are the designers for a season of summer theatre at the Lachine Rowing Club. Locally organized and produced, the Lakeshore Summer Theatre is a paid stock company drawing mainly on the talents of the MRT and 16-30 Club. It lasts for two seasons and HW designs Holiday by Philip Barry to open the venture, There's Always Juliet by John van Druten, Night Must Fall by Emlyn Williams, and others.

1942
HW begins reviewing professional theatre and important little theatre productions.

March and May
HW designs the elaborate sets for Don A. Haldane and the Negro Theatre Guild's ambitious production of Marc Connelly's Green Pastures. In March it is put on in cramped quarters at Victoria Hall in Westmount, but in May it is produced on the ampler premises of Montreal's major professional stage, His Majesty's.

April
HW co-authors with Janet McPhee Jupiter in Retreat, a comic melodrama about an irascible mathematician and the problems he encounters in his Laurentian cabin. MRT produces the show at Victoria Hall, with Charles Rittenhouse as director, but the opening is delayed due to the death of the company's founder and driving force, Martha Allan.

1943
January
HW designs for Filmore Sadler and the MRT's production of Lillian Hellman's Watch on the Rhine. This is the first production at the refurbished MRT Playhouse on Guy Street, which had previously been used for MRT Studio shows.

1945
HW is 'number one' ballet and theatre critic. He still reviews movies but he no longer does his radio column.

May
HW designs the first production of the Shakespeare Society of Montreal (1945-47), Much Ado About Nothing, at McGill University's Moyse Hall. He continues the concept of the unit set first worked on in the Shakespeare productions at West Hill.

1946
April
HW debuts as a director for the MRT in an ambitiously designed production of Rodney Ackland's thriller, The Old Ladies.

May
HW designs Shakespeare's King Lear for the first time, for the Shakespeare Society and director Pierre Dagenais.

1946
August
HW begins his affiliation with the long-running summer theatre run by Filmore and Madge Sadler, The Brae Manor Players of Knowlton, Quebec, by being their first guest director. He designs and directs G.B. Shaw's Candida.

1949
HW is appointed a Governor of the DDF, a position he holds until 1968.

February
At the DDF Regionals HW directs and designs two productions. As their second guest director ever, HW does J. B. Priestley's The Linden Tree for Montreal's longest-running little theatre group, the Trinity Players. As well the YM-YWHA perform S. Ansky's The Dybbuk and HW receives praise for this show from adjudicator Robert Speaight.

March
HW leaves Montreal and the Gazette to join the Toronto Globe and Mail as theatre and movie critic.

1950
January
HW begins his long association with the various groups at the University of Toronto by directing and designing Vanity Fair for Trinity College.

March
HW directs and designs Robertson Davies' tale of pre-Roman Britain, King Phoenix, for the North Toronto Theatre Guild.

1951
March and May
HW auspiciously commences his association with the University Alumnae Dramatic Club by directing and designing G. B. Shaw's In Good King Charles' Golden Days. This production wins the Central Ontario Drama League (CODL) Regional of the DDF and at the Final garners the Louis Jouvet directorial award for HW and the best actor award for John Colicos.

1951
December
HW directs and designs Bertolt Brecht's Galileo, the first production of the professional company Jupiter Theatre, done at the Royal Ontario Museum Theatre with John Drainie as Galileo.

1952
HW becomes solely a theatre and ballet critic for the Globe and Mail.

1953
March
HW directs and designs the winning CODL production of T.S. Eliot's The Family Reunion. Along with James F. Dean, president of the CODL, HW is given the Canadian Drama Award for distinguished contribution to Canadian theatre.

May
At the DDF Final Pierre Lefevre praises The Family Reunion production, awarding it the Festival Plaque, and gives the directorial award and Martha Allan Trophy for visual design to HW.

August
For the Montreal Festivals HW designs a spectacular set for an outdoor production of King Lear atop Mount Royal. Pierre Dagenais is director, and John Colicos, straight from his performance of Lear at the Old Vic, is the star of this one-night only extravaganza.

1954
September
HW opens the first full season of Donald and Murray Davis' professional Crest Theatre by directing the première of Robertson Davies' A Jig for the Gypsy.

October
HW directs the North American première of Graham Greene's The Living Room at the Crest.

1955
March
HW directs and designs a University Alumnae Theatre production of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya. At the CODL Regional, adjudicator Andre van Gyseghem praises the production and presents awards to three of its actors - Ron Hartmann, Rex Sevenoaks, Francess Halpenny - and to HW the Hugh Eayrs Trophy for best visual presentation. The show also wins the Bessborough Trophy for the best production in all the Regionals of a classic.

1956
March
HW directs Donald Davis and Amelia Hall in William Inge's Come Back, Little Sbeba for the Crest.

December
HW directs the world première of Globe and Mail reporter Mary Jukes' successful Toronto comedy, Every Bed is Narrow, for the Crest.

1957
HW is made a member of the Executive Committee of the DDF.

January
HW designs and directs Jean Giraudoux's Electra for Victoria College; Jane Griffin and Donald Sutherland star.

1958
Along with Michael Langham of the Stratford Festival, HW establishes a Canadian Play Contest, co-sponsored by the Globe and Mail and Stratford. A $2500 first prize is offered and the judges include Peter Ustinov, William Inge, Robert Whitehead, Langham, and HW. Donald Lamont Jack is the first winner for his To the Canvas Barricade, while Patricia Joudry and Jack Gray place second and third respectively.

1959
December
HW designs and directs an Alumnae production of Samuel Beckett's Endgame at the Coach House Theatre on Bedford Street.

1961
October
HW designs the sets and costumes for the Canadian Players' 1961-62 tour. David Gardner directs Christopher Fry's The Lady's Not for Burning and King Lear. HW's third design of King Lear is a striking transferral of Ancient Britain into an Eskimo context. William Hutt stars.

1963
January
HW directs and designs the set for a Trinity College production of Brecht's Trumpets and Drums.

October
HW directs and designs a Hart House Theatre production of Chekhov's The Three Sisters.

1964
October
HW directs and designs a Central Library Theatre production of Harold Pinter's The Caretaker.

1966
February
HW directs and designs the first major production at York University's Burton Auditorium, Molière's Don Juan.

October
HW directs and designs the first production of the University of Toronto Graduate Centre for Study of Drama - Dudley Fitts' translation of Aristophanes' Lysistrata. Terry Tweed stars.

1968
February
HW directs and designs the première of Jack Cunningham's Aperitif for the Alumnae and the Coach House Theatre on Cecil Street.

1971
HW is awarded honorary D Litt from York University.

1972
HW is the first chairperson of the Toronto Drama Bench, the association of theatre critics.

1974
November
HW designs and directs a dramatized reading of an abridged version of G.B, Shaw's Back to Methusaleh for the Graduate Centre for Study of Drama at Hart House Theatre.

1975
HW retires as the Globe and Mail's theatre critic.

1976
HW is made an Officer of the Order of Canada. He becomes a member of the Board of Trustees for the National Arts Centre Corporation. He is also one of the first three life members of the Canadian Equity Association.

1977
March HW designs and directs a futurist-inspired production of Luigi Pirandello's The Rules of the Game for the Graduate Centre for the Study of Drama; the production coincides with the annual meeting of the Pirandello Society of America, which this year takes place in Toronto.

1978
November
HW designs and directs an Alumnae production of Thornton Wilder's The Alcestiad at the Firehall Theatre.

1979
HW is a member Of the Advisory Boards of the Shaw Festival and Theatre Canada.

1982
March
HW directs and designs another Alumnae production at the Firehall T.S. Eliot's The Cocktail Party.

June
HW made an Honorary Member of the Association for Canadian Theatre History/Association d'histoire du théâtre au Canada for his contribution to Canadian theatre.