Reginald Dawson Livermore[2] AO (born 11 December 1938) is an Australian actor, singer, theatrical performer, designer, director, lyricist and writer and former television presenter.
His first professional job was as understudy at the Phillip Theatre in Around The Loop, covering Gordon Chater and Barry Humphries; in the next revue, Cross Section, he starred with Ruth Cracknell, June Salter and John Meillon.
Like many actors of that time he was drawn to the bright lights of London and then returned to Australia and the Ensemble Theatre, by then re-located to a boatshed at the edge of Sydney Harbour in Kirribilli.
Livermore appeared in Ensemble productions of Orpheus Descending, The Drunkard, The Double Dealer, The Canterville Ghost, The Thracian Horses, Miss Lonely Hearts, The Physicists and The Real Inspector Hound.
He moved to Melbourne for a two and a half-year stint with the Union Theatre Repertory Company, performing in the works of Rattigan, Ionesco, Shakespeare, Peter Ustinov, Bram Stoker and Patrick White.
He also made his directorial debut in a new production of The Shifting Heart by Australian playwright Richard Beynon and wrote his first musical The Good Ship Walter Raleigh.
He featured in several important ABC television drama productions, playing Ariel in The Tempest (1963), and co-starring opposite Tony Ward in The Rape of the Belt (1964).
Livermore had a prominent role the groundbreaking Commonwealth Film Unit documentary From the Tropics to the Snow (1964) and also featured in the historic ABC-TV production of The Recruiting Officer (1965), notable as the first play ever performed in the newly founded colony of New South Wales, in 1789.
During 1964/65 Livermore starred as the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz at the Sydney Tivoli, and then played the lead role in The Knack for the Phillip Theatre management.
He then became the first guest of the newly formed South Australia Theatre Company performing Andorra by Max Frisch and West of the Black Stump which he wrote with Sandra McKenzie.
This was followed by the popular, A Cup Of Tea, A Bex and A Good Lie Down another Sydney Phillip Theatre show featuring Gloria Dawn and Ruth Cracknell.
After two years starring in Hair he moved on to The Tooth of Crime by Sam Shepard at Nimrod, his own musical Lasseter for the Old Tote, and then joined the cast of the acclaimed Australian production of Jesus Christ Superstar for Harry M. Miller, where he won rave reviews for his show-stopping performance as King Herod.
In 1975, at the request of producer Eric Dare, Livermore conceived his first one-man show, Betty Blokk-buster Follies, which played to record crowds in Sydney, Canberra, Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne.
In 1989 he returned to television, as a member of Burke's Backyard on the Nine Network, concurrently writing and performing Wish You Were Here, a one-man show at the Clarendon Theatre Restaurant in Katoomba.
He also wrote and performed the highly successful Red Riding Hood, the Speed Hump and the Wolf at the Clarendon and the Ensemble Theatre again, before receiving an Australian Artist Creative Fellowship through the Australia Council.
Having lived in Wentworth Falls in The Blue Mountains for over 25 years establishing a prominent garden called Pirramimma, in 2007 Livermore relocated to the Southern Highlands in New South Wales with his long time partner Rob McMicking.
[citation needed] He received Melbourne's Green Room Award for Male Performer in a Supporting Role in music theatre for The Pirates of Penzance in 1992.