Alabanza

It is with great sadness and a heavy heart tonight that I learned that the gifted and beloved actor of both stage and screen Tracy Wright passed away yesterday Tuesday June 22nd, 2010 after a battle with pancreatic cancer.

I feel so blessed to have seen Ms. Wright perform in the remount of Daniel MacIvor’s play A Beautiful View last Spring at Tarragon Theatre. She gave a performance that shone particularly bright for me as she infused her character, Liz, with so much contradiction, so much humour and so much heart. That was her last Toronto performance. She had planned to read the role of Galileo in the Small Wooden Shoe fundraiser for the Actor’s Fund of Canada of Bertolt Brecht’s play Life of Galileo on May 30th amid a dazzling cast of Canadian theatre superstars, but she was forced to withdraw from the project as she recovered from surgery. The evening’s tone then shifted, according to Praxis Theatre’s Blog, as a night to give thanks and to celebrate Tracy Wright.

Ms. Wright founded the Augusta House with Daniel Brooks and Don McKellar in 1989, which set the tone for Queen Street West’s art’s scene. She performed in various plays at the Theatre Centre, as well as touring productions outside of Ontario. Click here to read an interesting interview Ms. Wright did with the incredibly articulate and wildly smart Laurel Green about her connection to the history of the Theatre Centre.

Ms. Wright was perhaps best known for her work in Canadian film, and especially for her long time collaboration with her husband Canadian filmmaking genius Don McKellar. She played cat-obsessed Dizelle on Twitch City, was in Superstar, Bubbles Galore, played a gallery curator who accidentally begins an online relationship with a small boy in Me and You and Everyone We Know, played opposite McKellar in Monkey Warfare and is easily the funniest and most captivating character in his film Last Night (which, if you haven’t seen, you should because it is a lovely one.) You can watch her in this infamous sketch from Kids in the Hall here.

Ms. Wright will be greatly missed by the Canadian theatre and film communities of which she played such an integral part, and I wish to send out much love and support to Don McKellar and their family and friends during this sad and difficult time.