Leaving a legacy

The sad passing of Peter Oliver, creator of the Basement Theatre in Shelburne, has had much of the community remembering all he has brought to them since he and his wife Joan’s arrival to Shelburne.

Although Peter’s background was in social work, he had grown up surrounded by the arts and he was drawn back towards the magic of theatre and when he was offered the position of ‘Warden’ of the Christ Church United Clubs at the Kennington Oval in 1961 in England his first action was to exchange competitive football with drama.

He led many actors, musicians, writers and directors including Salman Rushdie, Steven Berkoff and Pierce Brosnan throughout his time at the Oval until he was given the opportunity in 1974 to tour Europe for the next eight years with the theatre group Pip Simmons.

“It was dance, drama, artists and actors all together in one room, it was very exciting,” said Joan who was the company’s administrator and production manager, “we traveled like a rock group.”

In 1985, Peter and Joan left England to join their daughter in Toronto and eventually and accidentally found and retired to the town of Shelburne.

“After Toronto and all the other big cities where we had lived and worked in Europe, retiring and moving to Shelburne in 1992 was something like falling down a rabbit hole,” Peter wrote in his and Musical Director Bill Smith’s book, Alice the Musical.

Joan and Peter’s quiet retirement did not last and soon had formed Uranus Theatre, a theatre for teens from grade ten and up.

“We got to know a lot of new people,” his writing stated from his book, “some of them strange, but all of them strangely familiar.”

Loraine Chapman, cast member of the original Basement theatre recalls the scene in Shelburne at the time of the Oliver’s arrival.

“Looking back at the time,” she said, “with no Osprey there was nothing. You had to either travel to Liverpool or Yarmouth to see a show.”

The Uranus Theatre group performed wherever they could find space, a boys school clubhouse, an old boathouse to eventually evolve into the Basement Theatre and to include adults who became entangled in the magic.

“What’s it like to do that? Without your heart pounding and being nervous,” Chapman remembered thinking as she watched Uranus performances, “I wanted to be a part of it.”

The newly formed group that eventually included all ages of Shelburne County actors from seven to seventy began, hence it’s name, in a basement classroom at the Community College.

“He was a true artist who wanted to bring something to Shelburne County,” said Rebecca Tudor of the Basement Theatre group, “which he did.”

When the Basement theatre began Peter put an ad in the paper that stated, ‘realize your potential as a performer and make a show.’

Peter took the group from mostly smaller performances for friends and family into an enormous cast and choir of sixty people to perform at the Osprey Theatre their first big show, The Two and One-Half Penny Opera.

“There was a buzz as people started talking about it and it turned into a phenomenon,” said Chapman, “I don’t know if he knew what it would become…Shelburne hadn’t seen anything like it before.”

Throughout the first years of Basement theatre Peter and Bill Smith as Musical Director created many more productions that continued to push boundaries of theatre including Midsummer Night on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Alice the Musical and It’s a Greek Thing.

Peter would be a part of every nuance that went on in creating his productions including set and costume design.

“He had such a clear vision of what he wanted, often it was a one-man-show,” said Tudor.

Chapman remembered Peter pushing the cast to realize their full potential and pulling out of them things they did not know they could do.

“Everybody wanted to do everything he wanted us to do,” she choked with her voice full of tears, “because we loved him…I’ve never met anybody like him in my whole life.”

Before leaving Basement Theatre, after years of enjoying success and doing what he loved best, Peter handed over the reigns to the talented Director, Alison Stanton, to continue what he had started.

“He left a real legacy,” said Tudor, “it is a living theatre and because of him it is still going on.”

Chapman agreed adding that you don’t have all of this happen and then just stop.

“Learning a production is like learning life lessons…people see it as just a play but it is much more than that.”

Peter was many great things to the community and its people and though he will be missed, his legacy will live on through the theatre he created and the people he has touched.