|
|
Joy Coghill
Veteran actor and trail-blazer
Joy Coghill is a consummate stage and screen performer, teacher and
director. As an artistic director she was the first woman to head the
Vancouver Playhouse and, as such, commissioned such legendary plays
as George Ryga’s The Ecstasy of Rita Joe and Grass and Wild
Strawberries. Later she headed the National Theatre School’s
English Acting Section, receiving the first Gascon-Thomas Award in 1985.
Renowned for breaking new and
innovative ground, in 1953 she founded the first professional theatre
for children (Holiday Theatre). In 1994 she came full circle founding
the first professional theatre of senior performers called Western Gold.
In 1996 she played Lear in Jane Heyman’s Lear Project, and
in 1998 she created The Alzheimer’s Project, including the play
Strangers Among Us, for Western Gold Theatre.
Coghill received honorary degrees
from both Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia.
She is the recipient of four Jessie Richardson Awards, and the Herbert
Whittaker Critics’ Association Award. A member of the Order of Canada,
she was a recipient of a Governor General’s Performing Arts Award
in 2002.
Back to Author List
|
