Author Peter Hunton chronicles 90 years of Cambridge theatre in new book
Book tells the story of the Cambridge Community Players
Cambridge author Peter Hunton is a self-described "compulsive writer."
After retiring from his career as a technical writer, Hunton wanted to keep the act of writing a regular part of his life. He completed a memoir about his life and now Hunton is back with a new book titled In Which We Play.
The book is all about the Cambridge Community Players and their 90-year history of theatrical productions.
Hunton spoke with CBC Kitchener-Waterloo's The Morning Edition host Craig Norris about what went into researching the book.
Audio of this interview appears at the bottom of this page. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Craig Norris: So first of all, tell us about the Cambridge Community Players Theatre.
Peter Hunton: It began in 1934, and it was at that time called Galt Little Theatre. It only changed its name in 2015.
Galt Little Theatre performed regularly for that whole 90-year period, except for COVID. It started off in the Tassie Hall at Galt Collegiate and Vocational School.
It was somewhat nomadic over the 90 years until 1985 when the city of Cambridge bought and converted a Baptist Church on Water Street. That is now the Cambridge Arts Theatre and it's the permanent home of Cambridge Community Players.
Craig Norris: Why research it and write an entire book based on this history?
Peter Hunton: Well, as I told you, I enjoy writing.
When I retired I missed putting words on pages. So first of all, I wrote and self published my memoir. I was talking to a couple of people from the theatre during COVID and they said why don't you write the history? I couldn't think of a good reason [not to], so I started off. I was so fortunate to find somebody had a scrapbook on the theatre from the 1930s and 40s.
At that time there were two newspapers in Cambridge, and they each sent a reporter to every meeting and reported on every play. All the press clippings and photographs and programs and paraphernalia were in this scrapbook. But that only took me as far as about 1945.
After that I had to search the theatre. The biggest source of information was the City of Cambridge archives. But everything is hard copy, so there were bankers boxes full of folders and each one might have had 20 pieces of information in it. The archives only open Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I spent most of Tuesdays and Thursdays for a couple of years putting the stuff together. Then I went home and wrote the book.
Craig Norris: So this took two years of research?
Peter Hunton: I imagine it was about that. It was a long process and with having nothing already digital, I had to put everything into my laptop and then start to get it into some kind of sensible sequence.
I decided not to just make it chronological. The first bit from the scrapbook is chronological, but after that I divided it into leading men, leading ladies, and behind the scenes. I hope it's interesting. A couple of people I had read it said they couldn't put it down.
Craig Norris: I also understand that you played a role in this group as well. Tell us about that.
Peter Hunton: I think my main contribution was as leader of the set building crew. For a couple of decades I spent a lot of spare time in the theatre with the power drill. They have a nice workshop now beneath the stage and we put together some interesting sets.
Cambridge Community theatre doesn't have the facility that a place like Stratford or Drayton does, but we put together sets that represented what we wanted and it seemed to work at the time.
Craig Norris: What is one that really stands out to you?
Peter Hunton: My favourite show has to be My Fair Lady. Which is a huge operation for a community theatre to put on. You have to have live music. I think the cast is somewhere between 30 and 40 people.
They did a wonderful, wonderful job. I was a stagehand for that. The show ran three hours and we had 16 set changes. So that was tremendously successful. It sold out before it opened and they had to have extra performances. It really was a huge accomplishment.
Craig Norris: I want to just delve into a tiny bit about how you refer to yourself as a compulsive writer. What is it about writing for you? What does it do for you?
Peter Hunton: My career was in the poultry industry. I wrote articles for technical magazines and I wrote newsletters. I always enjoyed putting words on a page.
When I finally retired from that part of my career, I thought, what can I do now? That's when I wrote the memoir. The memoir is primarily about my career, but also about my family. When I was done, that was when I had this conversation with Buddy Brennan and Steve Robinson. They said why don't you write the history of the theatre? And it just came naturally.
LISTEN | New book documents 90 years of theatrical productions in Cambridge:
