Bruce Swerdfager

Bruce Swerdfager (March 12, 1928 – September 4, 2007) was a Canadian actor and theatre manager born in Ottawa, Ontario. He began his performing career at age fifteen, working as an actor on radio at Ottawa stations CKCO and CFRA. His early stage work included participation in the Ottawa Little Theatre, and in 1951 he was named Best Supporting Actor at the Dominion Drama Festival.

While employed as a typewriter salesman, Swerdfager auditioned for director Tyrone Guthrie and was selected to join the Stratford Festival company, becoming a founding member of the Stratford Shakespearean Festival of Canada. In 1954 he received the inaugural Tyrone Guthrie Award alongside William Hutt, using the prize money to study theatre in the United Kingdom during 1954 and 1955. He was later awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal in 1977.

Swerdfager appeared on Broadway between 1956 and 1960, with credits including the melodrama Tamburlaine the Great and the play Love and Libel. His stage work in New York ran concurrently with his growing administrative responsibilities in Canadian theatre.

Returning to the Stratford Festival, he advanced through a series of organizational roles — company manager, theatre and company manager, comptroller — before becoming general manager, a position he held from 1972 to 1976. During that tenure he reversed a million-dollar deficit, bringing the festival to a half-million-dollar surplus. He also served as company manager of the Canadian Players, and his survey of theatre facilities across Canada for the Canada Council helped stimulate national touring activity. He subsequently led the Dallas Theater Center and the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts. In 1986 he returned to the Stratford stage as a performer, appearing in The Boys from Syracuse and A Winter's Tale.

Swerdfager died of complications from diabetes on September 4, 2007, in Stratford, Ontario. His daughter, Ann Swerdfager, serves as head of public relations for the Stratford Festival.