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Linda Griffiths
Linda Griffiths is an actress,
producer and writer. Griffiths is a founding member of 25th
Street Theatre in Saskatoon and one of the original cast members in
its collective creation, Paper Wheat (1978), which toured sold-out
houses across Canada. A year later, she performed in another collective
creation, Les Maudits Anglais, in Montreal, under the direction
of future co-writer, Paul Thompson.
Griffiths’s first major success
came when she and Thompson collaborated to write Maggie and Pierre,
a one-person, three-character play that bases its narrative structure
on events in Pierre and Margaret Trudeau’s life together. Maggie
and Pierre toured Canada, played the Royal Alexandra Theatre in
Toronto, and Off Broadway at the Phoenix Theatre.
Griffiths has also written
O.D. in Paradise (first produced in 1982 at 25th Street Theatre);
Jessica (with Maria Campbell, first produced in 1984 at 25th Street
Theatre and later at Toronto’s Theatre Passe Muraille in 1986);
The Darling Family (first produced in 1991 at Theatre Passe Muraille,
made in 1993 into a feature film); Brother André’s Heart (first
produced in 1992 at Crow’s Theatre, Toronto); and The Duchess
(first produced in 1998 at Theatre Passe Muraille). Between 1986 and
1988, Griffiths was co-artistic director of Theatre Passe Muraille,
along with Layne Coleman and Clarke Rogers.
Griffiths has received many
awards for her contributions to the theatre world. She has won five
Dora Mavor Moore awards, including wins for Maggie and Pierre
(1980), O.D. in Paradise (1983), Jessica (1986), and
Alien Creature (2000); a Gemini award; two Chalmers awards for
Jessica (1986) and Alien Creature (2000); and a Quizanne
International Festival award for Jessica (1987). She has twice
been nominated for the Governor General’s Award.
Griffiths started her own company,
Duchess Productions (1997), which produced the tour of Alien Creature.
In addition to her plays, Griffiths writes fiction and poetry. In 1999,
an anthology of her work, Sheer Nerve: Seven Plays by Linda Griffiths,
was published.
Her latest play, The Age
of Arousal, premiered at Alberta Theatre Projects’ Enbridge playRites
Festival in 2007.
“I think there’s the
same secret to longevity in acting as there is to keeping alive throughout
a lifetime. It just has to do with a continuing sense of wonder about
the work itself. Someone won’t be seen for a couple of years and everyone
thinks they’re dead. Well they’re not dead, they’re rejuvenating
themselves—they’re cultivating their garden, they’re travelling,
they’re on the bar room floor. They’re doing whatever they do.”
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