Susan Wright (actress)

For other people with the same name, see Susan Wright.
Susan Wright
Born(1947-10-22)October 22, 1947
Calgary, Alberta
DiedDecember 29, 1991(1991-12-29) (aged 44)
Stratford, Ontario
NationalityCanadian
OccupationActor
Known forwon two Dora Mavor Moore Awards and an ACTRA Award
RelativesJanet Wright (sister)

Susan Wright was an award-winning Canadian actress.[1] Most prominently associated with stage roles, she also had a number of supporting roles in film and television.

She grew up in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and attended the University of Saskatchewan, where she performed at the Greystone Theatre.[2] She left the university, however, without graduating. She co-founded the Persephone Theatre in Saskatoon, with her older sister Janet Wright, and brother-in-law Brian Richmond.[3]

Wright frequently performed at the Stratford Festival in Stratford, Ontario in the 1980s,[4] including roles as Mistress Quickly in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Queen Margaret in Richard III, Paulina in The Winter's Tale, Mrs. Webb in Our Town, the Citizen's Wife in The Knight of the Burning Pestle, Mother Courage in Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children, and Germaine Lauzon in Michel Tremblay's Les Belles-soeurs alongside her sisters Anne and Janet.[4] In 1986 she appeared as Luce in a production of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's The Boys from Syracuse, which was filmed and televised by CBC Television. In 1991 she also starred in the title role in a touring production of Willy Russell's play Shirley Valentine.[4]

She appeared in the theatrical films Christina, The Wars, Thick as Thieves and I'll Never Get to Heaven, the television films Slim Obsession and Love and Larceny, and episodes of Adderly, The Twilight Zone and Street Legal.

Over her career she won two Dora Mavor Moore Awards, for her performances in productions of Sam Shepard's A Lie of the Mind and John Murrell's New World,[4] and an ACTRA Award for Slim Obsession.[4]

She was staying in the Stratford home of Brent Carver, a close friend, with her visiting parents, when all three died in a house fire, in December 1991.[5]

References

  1. ^ Diane Turbide (January 13, 1992). "Labors of love: Susan Wright was a power on and off stage". Maclean's. Retrieved August 31, 2020. Best known for her work at Ontario's Stratford and Shaw festivals, Wright earned two Dora Mavor Moore awards for Toronto stage performances and an ACTRA award for a 1984 television drama. She also helped to found the Persephone Theatre in Saskatoon in 1974.
  2. ^ Shelley A. Leedahl (August 27, 2008). "Emry's Dream: Greystone Theatre in Photographs and Words". Sask Books. Retrieved August 31, 2020. Variety shows and choruses had been performed at the U of S since 1909, but when Emrys Jones, a journalist, director, actor and educator, took the Drama Department's helm in 1945, Greystone Theatre's curtains rose on a new era of superbly directed and acted live theatre, and that tradition of excellence continues to the present.
  3. ^ J. Kelly Nestruck (November 14, 2016). "Janet Wright played wise-cracking matriarch on Corner Gas". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved August 31, 2020. She also had an important impact on theatre in her hometown, co-founding Saskatoon's Persephone Theatre in 1974 with her then-husband Brian Richmond and sister Susan. The theatre company is now the largest in Saskatchewan.
  4. ^ a b c d e "Wright, Susan". Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia.
  5. ^ Susan Ferrier Mackay (August 14, 2020). "Tony-winning performer Brent Carver commanded the stage in musicals and Shakespeare". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved August 31, 2020. In December, 1991, a fire of unknown origin broke out at his house in Stratford. At the time an adored friend, actor Susan Wright, was staying at the home along with her parents. All three perished in the blaze.