For 18 years at Lakeside, Dave McIntosh has centered his interests on the Lakeside Little Theatre—acting, directing, selecting plays, sustaining—community theater as a passionate 65-year long affair … though he adds that he has a little something on the side: He just shot 88 on his last regular golf jaunt in Guadalajara. And not to fail to mention Win, his wife, who he met onstage too, though well before Lakeside entered his life.
Dave was born in Bucksburn, near Aberdeen, Scotland. His father was a successful manager at a factory, while Dave largely excelled in every team sport going. After he left school, he got a job in social services as an apprentice sanitary inspector (“health inspector” outside Scotland). It so happened that in training classes he sat next to Bill Bryden, who became very famous in UK as a stage and film director and screenwriter. Dave joined Bill’s newly formed theater group in Greenock, Scotland and credits that experience as the start of his fascination with community theater, which, he says, has sustained and embraced all his personal idiosyncrasies. Bill taught him the absolute necessity of being a team player and that a good director’s job is to make each performer part of a cohesive team, and also to enjoy the experience. Bill was famous for that ability. Dave has the same skills.
His fascination with theater was also likely due to the reception of his acting in his debut performance: in short, raves from audience and reviewers. He found that he had the rare quality of “stage presence.” Any who saw him in LLT’s recent production of The Father understands the quality. Dave gives the sense that he is the character, not that he is acting it and the effect is theater at its most electrifying.
Bill Bryden recognized Dave’s acting talent and wanted him to go to London to attend the prestigious Rose Bruford Drama School, to go the route of professional actor, but to Dave what he was doing in community theater seemed like too much fun, and less daunting, and soon enough his job placed him in a lovely part of England (naturally with a nearby community theater where he successfully directed his first play) and then to Bermuda where he remained for seven years. The Bermuda Musical and Drama Society and the Bermuda Arts Council were very active and Dave acted and directed many times.
Again, these were community theaters, where acting and directing is a hobby rather than gainful employment. Unlike professional theater where, unless you were one of the handful of stars, you might consider yourself “lucky” if you managed to keep the same role for years, community theater allows an actor or director to experience a large number of theater opportunities. Dave has amassed a list of plays he has acted in or directed beginning in 1960. They number over 75 and counting.
Next, Dave moved on to Vancouver, Canada, and stayed for 35 years. Not surprisingly, the North Vancouver Community Players played a major role in his life there. He got a job in a factory that did sheet metal work for the maritime industry. In short order it went bankrupt, but not before Dave felt he had understood what ownership was doing wrong. With a partner, he obtained a $150,000 loan from an investor in the U.S. and bought the company. Within a mere year they had turned it around and paid back the loan in full. Whatever accounting or bidding or other business essentials he and his partner used in their success, Dave, almost in passing, says that they had a happy work force.
A happy team, teamwork: that emphasis and that leadership talent seem to be the key to understanding Dave’s success in life and the affection in which he is held. He says he was a not such a great player in his sports, but he could foster teamwork. He must have created a team spirit in that factory in Canada to have turned it into the great success it became. He relishes his ability to pull a cast together, to playfully nudge a poor performance toward improvement, to help amateur performers have a good time and bring the audience with them.
In time, Dave got his partner to buy him out, and set off to comfortably enjoy his golf and community theater passions. His wife, Win, had a friend in Ajijic. They went for a visit. One look at the Lakeside Little Theatre, established in 1965 and thus the oldest English-language theater in Mexico (and no doubt a look at what local golf courses had to offer) and they made a decision to move. He sweeps a hand across the view of his terrace and the lake beyond and seems very happy that the business bought him this.
Dave hasn’t just made his mark in acting and directing at the LLT (with Win as a frequent stage manager). Their generous grant made it possible to rebuild the stage, to replace seating, and to improve and upgrade all that backstage hidden world that make theater possible. Look above the door as you next go to take your seat: McIntosh Auditorium.
At 84, he is enjoying all his marbles, and his ability to memorize hefty portions of dialogue (though he’ll modestly tell you he works very, very hard at it) but is just moving toward semi-retirement from LLT. He is completely delighted that he has been able to finesse the opportunity to put on Come From Away—the story of the 9/11 diversion of planes to Newfoundland, Nova Scotia—the rights for which for some unfathomable reason were not available in Mexico. Coming soon, another gift from Dave McIntosh to our theater community.
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- Profile: Dave Mcintosh - May 30, 2026
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