Ensemble Bios

Peter Millard

In his twenty-sixth season at the Shaw Festival, Mr Peter Millard appears in Ragtime and His Girl Friday. Last season, he appeared as Bartleby in Morwyn Brebner’s adaptation of Ferenc Molnár’s The President and as Joe in Andrew Bovell’s When the Rain Stops Falling.

Since 1987, Peter has appeared in a number of productions at The Shaw including Half and Hour, Harvey, Born Yesterday, The Devil’s Disciple, Getting Married, The President (2008), Mack and Mabel, Tristan, Arms and The Man, Rosmersholm, Belle Moral:  A Natural History, Three Men on a Horse, Floyd Collins, Widowers’ Houses, Happy End (2003 and 2005), Caesar and Cleopatra, Merrily We Roll Along, The Millionairess, The Apple Cart, You Can’t Take It With You, The Madras House, John Bull’s Other Island, Will Any Gentleman?, Sorry Wrong Number, The Hollow, Shall We Join the Ladies?, The Petrified Forest, Cavalcade, The Front Page, Sherlock Holmes, The Unmentionables, Drums in the Night, The Man with the Flower in his Mouth, Present Laughter, Ten Minute Alibi, Peter Pan (1988), Not in the Book, Patria 1 and The Characteristics Man, a Shaw Festival/Canadian Opera Company co-production.

Other theatre credits include Arthur Miller’s The Price, directed by Christopher Newton (Theatre Aquarius); Love Letters (Lyndesfarne Theatre Projects); It’s A Wonderful Life (Niagara Historical Museum) with his wife and fellow Shaw Ensemble member Gabrielle Jones; The Chief in the English premiere of The Coronation Voyage (Alberta Projects); Chief Inspector Hubbard in Dial “M” for Murder (Theatre Aquarius); the public workshop production of Tristan (Tarragon Theatre); Humble Boy (Ottawa’s National Arts Centre and the Vancouver Playhouse); Fire, Not About Heroes, Wit (Centaur Theatre); Fallen Angels (Canadian Stage Company); Whose Life Is It Anyway? and Hedda Gabler (Magnus Theatre); Fire and Fool for Love (Citadel Theatre), Fire (National Arts Centre and Theatre Passe Muraille/Shaw Festival co-production); The Foreigner (Royal Alexandra Theatre); Absurd Person Singular and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Manitoba Theatre Centre) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Toronto Free Theatre). Peter has also appeared at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Tarragon Theatre, Alberta Theatre Projects, Young People’s Theatre and in Canadian and European tours for Toronto Workshop Productions.

Peter was nominated for a Dora Award in 1988 for his performance as Felix in The Normal Heart (Bathurst Street Theatre) and, in 2003, won a Dora Award for his creation of the character Weegee in the Shaw Festival/Tarragon Theatre co-production of the musical noir Little Mercy’s First Murder, written by Morwyn Brebner, score by Paul Sportelli and Jay Turvey, directed and choreographed by Eda Holmes, and assisted by Jay Turvey and Jane Johanson.

His radio, film and television credits include Road to Avonlea; The Investigations of Quentin Nickles (CBC), produced by Bill Howell, directed by Barry Morgan, and starring Neil Munro and Sarah Orenstein; The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford; Urban Legends: Final Cut; Must Be Santa; and Thirty-Two Short Films about Glen Gould.

Born in Coldwater, Ontario, Peter attended Trinity College School, Port Hope and the University of Toronto’s Scarborough College. He joined George Luscombe’s Toronto Workshop Productions in 1972 where he was a member of the acting company over a period of 13 years. He is very proud of his son Jeremy.

He makes his home in Niagara-on-the-Lake with his wife and fellow company member Gabrielle Jones.