Reflections of longtime Playhouse set designer John Thompson

SOUTH DUNDAS – Longtime Upper Canada Playhouse set designer John Thompson, recently turned 100. “Somebody turning 100 is one thing, but the extent of the importance John has meant to this theatre is just amazing,” said the theatre’s artistic director Donnie Bowes.

To commemorate Thompson’s decades of scenes set at the playhouse, Bowes and Thompson recently sat down with The Leader at their beloved theatre to talk about Thompson’s career as Thompson prepared to move to a Montreal retirement home.

Thompson started at the Upper Canada Playhouse at the age of 79. “I knocked on the door,” said John.

“You were pushing yourself as a scene painter,” remembered Donnie.

Donnie decided to give him a try painting sets for Anne of Green Gables.

The next season Donnie had John back to design the set for On Golden Pond, and from there, show after show, season after season and decade after decade, the relationship continued.

“John’s been designing sets for us, well, for about 20 years,” said Bowes.

Thompson estimates that he designed the sets for about 40 shows.

Over the last few years he also designed sets for the Lions fundraising plays.

While Thompson made a lifelong living as an artist, he was able to learn, develop and adapt his talents to any circumstance giving him a varied and diverse career path.

“God gave me a talent, but it was my job to find that talent and develop it,” said Thompson.

When he was just 15 years old, Thompson’s dad put him in art school, recalled Thompson speaking about how he got into art.

“All the schools in Britain before the war were evacuated into the country because we knew they were going to bomb the sh!# out of us. My father’s job was transferred from Leeds to Manchester and all the schools had gone. The only school open was the art college. My mother had to get me out of the house, so my father enrolled me in the art college to get me out of my mother’s hair.”

“Luckily, God gave me some talent,” said Thompson, who credits his art school learning with making him an excellent textile designer, one of his careers that he most enjoyed.

With the Royal Air Force in World War II, Thompson went from being in the military band, to being put in charge of a garrison theatre in Buckerberg in central Germany in 1946. He was there in Germany for two years during the War and then 2.5 years during occupation.

“And that was a fun time,” he said.

“Because all of the theatres in the major cities had been bombed, at that time, this was the biggest theatre in all of Germany,” said Thompson. “They put me in charge of this theatre with a staff of four. It went very well. I enjoyed it.”

When Thompson came out of the air force to go back to Britain there was really nothing there for him – “All they wanted were bricklayers.”

So Thompson came to Canada in 1949 to Montreal where he taught at the Museum of Fine Arts and then opened his own studio for textile design. “The studio took off very well,” said Thompson, until the whole Canadian textile industry went flat.

That’s when Thompson found his way back to the theatre world in Vermont and then Malone, NY, before coming back to Canada, to Prescott when he started to knock on doors to continue to pursue his interests and talents in set design.

“John was always a valuable resource,” said Bowes.

Both spoke about the cash book that belonged to John’s grand father. As owner of a large factory he had a huge record book that John has for years been using as Scrooge’s ledger in UCP productions of A Christmas Carol.

“When we opened it up, some of the entries in it were actually made substantial years before Charles Dickens had even written the book,” said Bowes.

Thompson’s talents brought authentic scene painting to the Upper Canada Playhouse for the first time.

The two said like in any relationship they had disagreements over the years. “You have to when you’re creating something,” said Thompson. “John was always very demanding,” said Bowes, but when we made changes, John would often say – It’s only paint.”

“This is the most friendly theatre I’ve ever worked for,” said Thompson of the Upper Canada Playhouse.

After having his picture taken in the theatre, Thompson paused a moment in the doorway to “take a last look around the place.”