North American Theatre Work
Waller made his directorial debut with the Keith Waterhouse-Willis Hall play Billy Liar in Scarborough, Ontario, in 1964. After singing in Rigoletto, La Boheme, and Turandot with the Canadian Opera in its 1965 season, and while working as a Globe & Mail theatre critic, he was contracted by the Arts Council of Canada to help amateur groups throughout Ontario, Manitoba, and Canada's Maritime Provinces upgrade their work. Some 40 productions followed.
The plays he directed at the Festival were Joseph Kesselring's Arsenic and Old Lace, John Williams' Can You Hear Niagara Falls?, and Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit. Waller's production of this drama was successful, and in 1969 it was seen at the Stratford Festival of Canada, Stratford, Ontario, with the same cast he had used at the DDF.
As his writing career demanded more of his time, Waller turned to what he called "the less arduous task of acting." He appeared in character roles at Montreal's Saidye Bronfman Theatre, Thêatre La Poudrière, and Centaur Theatre, and on CBC radio in Toronto and Halifax, Nova Scotia. At one point he took part in Louis-Honoré Fréchette's historical play Félix Poutré for Radio Canada, in French.
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