Community theatre is built not only by the people the audience sees, but by the people who give their time, judgment, patience, and skill to everything around the performance. At the Peterborough Theatre Guild, two of those people were sisters-in-law Joan McRae and Margaret Carley. For many years, they helped sustain the Guild as dedicated volunteers.

Now their legacy is being honoured through the Joan and Margaret Fund, a new fund established at the Community Foundation of Greater Peterborough by their sons, Dave Carley and Doug McRae.

Both women were deeply involved in the Guild for many years, contributing in ways that audiences rarely see but that every theatre depends on. Joan McRae worked in several areas, including backstage and props. With a degree in English and a lifelong love of literature, she also served on the Guild’s Play Selection Committee, where her enthusiasm for reading and discussing plays made her a valued voice. Her contributions extended beyond Peterborough as well. As the Guild’s representative to the Eastern Ontario Drama League (EODL), she became widely respected for her dedication and was eventually honoured with the League’s Outstanding Service Award.

Margaret Carley brought her own talents to the Guild. Like Joan, she helped with props, but she also took on important administrative roles, including serving as treasurer for several EODL and Theatre Ontario festivals. One of the roles Margaret’s family remembers most vividly was her overseeing ticket sales for Guild productions long before online ticketing

systems existed. “This was the pre-computer era,” says her son Dave. “People mailed in forms listing their seating preferences, and my mother had to sort it all out.” During ticket season, the family dining room table disappeared beneath carefully arranged stacks of seating charts and mail orders. “For long stretches of time we had no dining room table,” he recalls.

It was painstaking work, the kind that rarely receives applause but is essential to keeping a theatre running smoothly.

Like many women of their generation, both Joan and Margaret were well educated but didn’t pursue professional careers outside the home. The Theatre Guild offered them something important, a creative outlet and a lively social community. “They just loved the people there,” Dave says. “The Guild has such an interesting collection of characters. It was a wonderful place for them to be involved.”

For Margaret, who was naturally shy, theatre offered a way to participate in the creative process without stepping onto the stage. “She never would have acted,” Dave says with a laugh. “If she had gotten up on stage she probably would have fainted.” That didn’t stop her from admiring the performers and the craft of theatre itself.

When Dave and his cousin Doug McRae began discussing how to honour their mothers, they

turned to the Community Foundation for advice. The result was the Joan and Margaret Fund, a fund designated to support the development of actors, directors, and volunteers at the Peterborough Theatre Guild to ensure the Guild thrives for years to come. “The Guild does a lot of training,” Dave explains. “People think first about acting, but there are so many other roles. Producing shows, managing ticketing systems, playwriting workshops, it really covers every facet of theatre.”

By supporting training and learning opportunities, the fund will help ensure that the knowledge and skills needed to run a community theatre are passed on to the next generation. For Dave, the connection to the Guild is also deeply personal. Now a professional playwright of more than forty years, he traces the beginnings of his career directly to the Peterborough

Theatre Guild.

“It all started there,” he says. In 1979, the Guild staged one of his earliest works, a rock-and-roll musical about Susanna Moodie. “I can’t believe they ever took a chance on me,” he says. “But they did.” That experience proved formative. “The Guild is a place where people can learn new skills, build confidence, and try something they’ve never done before,” Dave says. “It

offers opportunities in so many ways.”

Through the Joan and Margaret Fund, the legacy of two dedicated volunteers will continue to support those opportunities for years to come. In doing so, it honours the spirit of the countless volunteers who quietly keep community theatre alive, one show, one rehearsal, and sometimes one dining-room table full of ticket orders at a time.