Early career in Canada Bawtree emigrated to Canada in 1962, and acted on stage and television in Toronto for three years. He also taught for one year at
Victoria College, University of Toronto, and working as
dramaturge at the
Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Stratford, Ontario, for the 1964 season, under
Michael Langham. After serving as the ''
Toronto Telegram's'' book critic for six months in 1965, he resigned to take up a position at the newly formed
Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, as Resident in Theatre. There, he was responsible for founding the university's theatre program. He held the position for four years, resigning in 1969. In 1966 he returned to the Stratford Festival, being commissioned to write a play for the company. His
The Last of the Tsars premiered at the Avon Theatre, Stratford, in July 1966, and was directed by Michael Langham and starred
William Hutt, Amelia Hall and Tony van Bridge. In 1967, on receiving a Canada Council travel and study bursary, he went to live for eight months in
Cali, Colombia, where he learned Spanish, wrote poetry and worked at the Teatro Experimental di Cali under its artistic director Enrique Buenaventura. Returning to Ontario in 1969, Bawtree assisted Michael Langham on his 1970 production of
The School for Scandal, and was then appointed as Director of English Theatre at the
National Arts Centre in Ottawa. He resigned the next year after
Jean Gascon offered him the post of Literary Manager and Assistant to the Director at the Stratford Festival. That year he first directed at the Shaw Festival, Niagara-on-the-Lake. At Stratford, he also became director of Stratford's Third Stage, where he initiated four seasons of theatre and music theatre productions, including
Patria II: Requiems for a Party Girl by
R. Murray Schafer (1971), starring
Phyllis Mailing, The Red Convertible by Buenaventura, and
The Medium of Menotti (1974), starring
Maureen Forrester. In 1972 he directed
Oliver Goldsmith's
She Stoops To Conquer on the Stratford Festival's main stage; it was revived for the 1973 season, televised by
CBC in 1974, and broadcast in 1975. Bawtree was appointed an Associate Director of the Festival in 1973, but resigned from Stratford in 1974. He lived in New York City for a year, directing two
off-Broadway productions, and directing also in Cincinnati, Westport, and the
Guthrie Theatre, Minneapolis. For the Guthrie he also wrote a television adaptation of
The School for Scandal, directed by Michael Langham for
PBS-TV.
Later career In 1975, back in Toronto, he founded COMUS Music Theatre with Maureen Forrester. For COMUS he co-wrote and directed ''Harry's Back In Town
in 1976, and directed The Medium in 1978. He also directed The Beggar's Opera'' for the Guelph Spring Festival in 1976. In 1978 he became Director of the
Banff School of Fine Arts summer musical theatre training program, which he ran until 1983. In 1979 he moved to Banff to become Arts Planner and Director of Inter Arts for the newly established Winter Cycle of arts programs. In 1981 he founded the Music Theatre Studio Ensemble at Banff, a training program for actors, singer, designers, writers and composers. The program achieved international notice, and he was made a member of the
International Theatre Institute's Music Theatre Committee, whose meetings and seminars took him over the next years to the USSR, France, Hungary, Norway, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, Cuba, East Germany and Turkey. Bawtree resigned from the Banff School – by now renamed The Banff Centre – in 1986, and for three years worked freelance, while also completing his book on music theatre,
The New Singing Theatre. In 1988 he was invited to Finland to direct the Finnish language premiere of
Oh! What a Lovely War [
Sota On Mahtava!], in
Tampere. This was the first of many visits to Finland, where over the next years he directed student-professional productions, including
Working in Tampere and
Albert Herring at the Sibelius Academy. He also co-directed two music theatre training programs, and in 1992 directed
70, Girls, 70 (Kevättä Rinnassa) at Tampereenteatteri. He was also one of the founders of Sumute, a Finnish music theatre company. In 1989 he was commissioned to write a one-woman play for Quebec actor and chanteuse
Monique Leyrac. The play,
Sarah Bernhardt and the Beast, premiered in Montreal, and toured in English and French through Ontario and Quebec 1989–90. In 1990 he was invited to be Director of Drama at
Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, a position he held until his retirement in 2003, teaching acting and directing many student productions of classics, including plays of
Shakespeare,
Chekhov and
Brecht. In 1994 he founded the
Atlantic Theatre Festival, overseeing the conversion of Acadia University's disused ice rink into a 500-seat thrust stage theatre. With major support from
Christopher Plummer, the festival opened in 1995, and Bawtree served as its artistic director for the first four years. He parted company with the festival in 1998. In 2017, Acadia University named the Festival Theatre stage the 'Bawtree Bernhardt Festival Stage', in honour of Michael and his Acadia University colleague Colin Bernhardt. In 2003 he founded the Joseph Howe Initiative, to celebrate in 2004 the 200th birthday of
Joseph Howe, Nova Scotia's greatest son. He performed as Joseph Howe on several occasions in 2004, including in a version of Howe's famous
defence against a charge of seditious libel in 1835, and in a CBC-TV documentary on Howe. He also wrote a young adult's novel,
Joe Howe to the Rescue, to introduce Howe to the young generation. In 2008 he appeared as Joseph Howe on many occasions for Democracy250, an initiative set up by the Province of Nova Scotia to celebrate the birth of Canadian democracy in Nova Scotia in 1758. These performances took him all over Nova Scotia, as well as to Ottawa, Boston and London UK. In recent years he toured in Nova Scotia and the UK with readings of
A Christmas Carol and
Three Men in a Boat, and in the UK with his own one-man show
The Pegasus Bridge Show, raising money for charity. ==Personal life==