Walter John Learning

1938-2020

Walter John Learning (director, playwright, artistic director, producer, and actor) was born in Quidi Vidi, Newfoundland on 16 November 1938/ His education began at the St. Thomas grade school in Newfoundland for grades one and two. He then spent grades three to eleven at Bishop Feild College in St. John’s. After graduation, Learning moved to Fredericton to attend the University of New Brunswick (UNB) business programme. In his second year of study he changed his major from Business to Philosophy. He received his BA from UNB in 1961, his MA in 1963, and, in 1978, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate. In 1963, he was awarded a Commonwealth Scholarship to go to Australia to pursue a PhD at the Australian National University in Canberra. He returned to Canada in May of 1966 and was a Director of Drama for UNB’s summer session. In the fall of that year, he returned to Newfoundland for two years to be a lecturer in Philosophy at Memorial University. In May of 1968, he returned to Fredericton to be the General Manager of the Beaverbrook Playhouse. In 1968, near the end of the year, he established Theatre New Brunswick. At the time, TNB was Canada’s only full-time touring regional theatre, having its first premiere in January of 1969. For ten years, Learning was both the General Manager of the Playhouse and the Artistic Director for TNB. In June 1978, Learning left TNB to become head of the theatre section of the Canada Council for the Arts in Ottawa. He stayed there until 1982, moving to Vancouver for five years to become the Artistic Director of the playhouse located there. In 1987, he moved to PEI to be the Artistic Director of the Charlottetown Festival, also working for CBC on the morning and afternoon shows. For the next five years, he was Artistic Director of Confederation Centre of the Arts in Charlottetown, then he went out on his own as a freelance actor, broadcaster, writer, and director, while also President of Learning Productions. In March of 1995, he returned to Fredericton to become executive director/producer of TNB, where he remained until 1999. Learning was the editor of Gifts to Last: Stories from the Maritimes and Newfoundland (1996). He collaborated with his friend, Alden Nowlan, on the plays Frankenstein (1974) and The Incredible Murder of Cardinal Tosca (1978). They co-wrote A Gift to Last, which was based on the teleplay done by Gordon Pinsent, and La Svengali. Another of their collaborations was The Dollar Woman (1977). Throughout his profession, he received several awards, including a Lifetime Canadian Theatre Research Association Award. Learning was appointed to both the Order of New Brunswick and Order of Canada in 2018 and 2019 respectively. Until his death on January 5, 2020, he had been freelancing as an actor and director.

Predominant New Brunswick Residences:

Fredericton