Christopher Newton is a Canadian director and actor and served as Artistic Director of the Shaw Festival

Shaw Festival

The Shaw Festival is a major Canadian theatre festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, the second largest repertory theatre company in North America...

 from 1980-2002.

Newton was born in England and educated at Sir Roger Manwood's School in Kent

Kent

Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

, the University of Leeds

University of Leeds

The University of Leeds is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...

, Purdue University

Purdue University

Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S., is the flagship university of the six-campus Purdue University system. Purdue was founded on May 6, 1869, as a land-grant university when the Indiana General Assembly, taking advantage of the Morrill Act, accepted a donation of land and...

 in Indiana

Indiana

Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...

 and the University of Illinois

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...

, where he earned his M.A.
He performed with the Canadian Players, at the Manitoba Theatre Centre

Manitoba Theatre Centre

Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre is Canada's oldest English-language regional theatre. Next to the Stratford and Shaw Festivals, MTC has a higher annual attendance than any other theatre in the country...

, the Vancouver Playhouse and the Stratford Festival, where he played such roles as 'Oberon' in A Midsummer Night's Dream

A Midsummer Night's Dream

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play that was written by William Shakespeare. It is believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta...

and 'Aramis' in The Three Musketeers

The Three Musketeers

The Three Musketeers is a novel by Alexandre Dumas, first serialized in March–July 1844. Set in the 17th century, it recounts the adventures of a young man named d'Artagnan after he leaves home to travel to Paris, to join the Musketeers of the Guard...

. He also appeared on Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 in Peter Shaffer

Peter Shaffer

Sir Peter Levin Shaffer is an English dramatist and playwright, screenwriter and author of numerous award-winning plays, several of which have been filmed.-Early life:...

's The Private Ear.

In 1968, Newton founded Theatre Calgary

Theatre Calgary

Theatre Calgary, theatre company in Calgary, Alberta, established as a professional company in 1968.-History:The origin of the company dates back to the 1940s, when students of Betty Mitchell, a drama teacher at Calgary's Western Canada High School, established an amateur group known as "Workshop...

 where he served as Artistic Director until 1971, when he was appointed Artistic Director of Vancouver Playhouse. In 1979, after thrice refusing, he accepted an appointment as Artistic Director of the Shaw Festival. During his tenure, Newton continued the work to expand and enrich the Shaw Festival repertory company.

Newton directed a number of critically acclaimed productions, including George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...

's Caesar and Cleopatra

Caesar and Cleopatra (play)

Caesar and Cleopatra, a play written in 1898 by George Bernard Shaw, was first staged in 1901 and first published with Captain Brassbound's Conversion and The Devil's Disciple in his 1901 collection, Three Plays for Puritans. It was first performed at Newcastle-on-Tyne on March 15, 1899...

(1983), Heartbreak House

Heartbreak House

Heartbreak House is a play written by George Bernard Shaw, first published in 1919 and first played at the Garrick Theatre in 1920. According to A. C. Ward, the work argues that "cultured, leisured Europe" was drifting toward destruction, and that "Those in a position to guide Europe to safety...

(1985), Major Barbara

Major Barbara (play)

Major Barbara is a three act play by George Bernard Shaw, written and premiered in 1905 and first published in 1907.-Setting:*London*Act I: Lady Britomart's house in Wilton Crescent*Act II: The Salvation Army shelter in West Ham...

(1987), Man and Superman

Man and Superman

Man and Superman is a four-act drama, written by George Bernard Shaw in 1903. The series was written in response to calls for Shaw to write a play based on the Don Juan theme. Man and Superman opened at The Royal Court Theatre in London on 23 May 1905, but with the omission of the 3rd Act...

(1989), Misalliance

Misalliance

Misalliance is a play written in 1909–1910 by George Bernard Shaw.Misalliance takes place entirely on a single Saturday afternoon in the conservatory of a large country house in Hindhead, Surrey in Edwardian era England. It is a continuation of some of the ideas on marriage that he expressed in...

(1990), Pygmalion

Pygmalion (play)

Pygmalion: A Romance in Five Acts is a play by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw. Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at an ambassador's garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of...

(1992), Candida

Candida (play)

Candida, a comedy by playwright George Bernard Shaw, was first published in 1898, as part of his Plays Pleasant. The central characters are clergyman James Morell, his wife Candida and a youthful poet, Eugene Marchbanks, who tries to win Candida's affections. The play questions Victorian notions...

(1993) and You Never Can Tell (1995), as well as Henry Arthur Jones

Henry Arthur Jones

Henry Arthur Jones was an English dramatist.-Biography:Jones was born at Granborough, Buckinghamshire to Silvanus Jones, a farmer. He began to earn his living early, his spare time being given to literary pursuits...

's The Silver King, William Gillette

William Gillette

William Hooker Gillette was an American actor, playwright and stage-manager in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who is best remembered today for portraying Sherlock Holmes....

's Sherlock Holmes, Harold Brighouse

Harold Brighouse

Harold Brighouse was an English playwright and author whose best known play is Hobson's Choice. He was a prominent member, together with Allan Monkhouse and Stanley Houghton, of a group known as the Manchester School of dramatists.-Early life:Harold Brighouse was born in Eccles, Salford, the...

's Hobson's Choice, Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...

's Lady Windermere's Fan, J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan, St. John Hankin's The Return of the Prodigal, and Noel Coward

Noël Coward

Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...

's Cavalcade. He also continued to appear as an actor at The Shaw, taking a series of small roles in one of the company's greatest successes, Derek Goldby

Derek Goldby

Derek Goldby is an Australian-born theatre director who has worked internationally, particularly in Canada, Belgium, the United Kingdom, the United States and France.- Early life :...

's production of Edmond Rostand

Edmond Rostand

Edmond Eugène Alexis Rostand was a French poet and dramatist. He is associated with neo-romanticism, and is best known for his play Cyrano de Bergerac. Rostand's romantic plays provided an alternative to the naturalistic theatre popular during the late nineteenth century...

's Cyrano de Bergerac

Cyrano de Bergerac (play)

Cyrano de Bergerac is a play written in 1897 by Edmond Rostand. Although there was a real Cyrano de Bergerac, the play bears very scant resemblance to his life....

, as well as playing lead roles in Noel Coward's Private Lives and Granville Barker's The Secret Life.

As Artistic Director, he brought in such directors such as Tadeusz Bradecki, Derek Goldby, Denise Coffey

Denise Coffey

Denise Coffey is an English actress, director, and playwright.After training at the Glasgow College of Dramatic Art, Coffey began a career in repertory at the Gateway Theatre in Edinburgh, then moved to the Palladium Theatre there...

, Jackie Maxwell

Jackie Maxwell

Jackie Maxwell , theatre director and dramaturge.Maxwell was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. After earning an Honours degree in Drama at the University of Manchester, England, Maxwell accompanied her husband, Benedict Campbell, back to his native Canada, where she began to work as a director at...

 and Neil Munro

Neil Munro

-Acting career:Born in Musselburgh, Scotland, Munro moved to Toronto at an early age. After graduating from the National Theatre School of Canada in 1967, he quickly established himself as one of the most compelling theatre actors in Canada, performing with Toronto Arts Productions, the National...

. Newton also carefully developed the acting company, cultivating talented younger actors with challenging roles and effectively turning company members Jim Mezon, Heath Lamberts

Heath Lamberts

Heath Lamberts, CM was a Canadian actor.He was born James Langcaster in Toronto, Ontario, where, as a boy, he won singing contests at school, allowing him to perform with Toronto's Opera Festival Association...

, and Fiona Reid

Fiona Reid

Fiona Reid, CM is a Canadian television, film and stage actress. She is best known for her role as Cathy on the TV series King of Kensington....

 into stars. Newton also widened the mandate of the Shaw Festival (the performance of plays written and set in Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...

's lifetime, 1856–1950) by programming the works of lesser known playwrights such as Granville Barker, whose entire oeuvre was performed at the Shaw Festival in a series of highly praised productions directed by Neil Munro.

Christopher Newton's final season as Artistic Director of the Shaw was in 2002, and he invited Jackie Maxwell to join him for the season as Artistic Director Designate in order to ensure a careful transition of leadership. Since his departure, he has worked as a freelance director and actor for companies such as the Canadian Opera Company

Canadian Opera Company

The Canadian Opera Company is an opera company in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the largest opera company in Canada and the third largest producer of opera in North America. The COC performs in its own opera house, the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.-History:For 40 years until...

, the Vancouver Playhouse, and Theatre Calgary

Theatre Calgary

Theatre Calgary, theatre company in Calgary, Alberta, established as a professional company in 1968.-History:The origin of the company dates back to the 1940s, when students of Betty Mitchell, a drama teacher at Calgary's Western Canada High School, established an amateur group known as "Workshop...

. He has also returned to the Shaw Festival in 2004 to direct Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest and in 2005 to direct R. C. Sherriff

R. C. Sherriff

-External links:**...

's Journey's End

Journey's End

Journey's End is a 1928 drama, the seventh of English playwright R. C. Sherriff. It was first performed at the Apollo Theatre in London by the Incorporated Stage Society on 9 December 1928, starring a young Laurence Olivier, and soon moved to other West End theatres for a two-year run...

.

Christopher Newton's awards include the Governor General's Performing Arts Award, the Molson Prize

Molson Prize

The Thomas Henry Pentland Molson Prize for the Arts is awarded by The Canada Council for the Arts. Two prizes are awarded annually to distinguished individuals. One prize is awarded in the arts, one in the social sciences and humanities...

; and, from the United States Institute for Theatre Technology

United States Institute for Theatre Technology

The United States Institute for Theatre Technology is a membership organization which aims to advance the skills and knowledge of theatre, entertainment and performing arts professionals involved in the areas of design, production and technology, and to generally promote their interests...

(USITT), the Thomas DeGaetani Award, all honoring his lifetime contribution to the theatre.