Linda Griffiths was an actor, producer, and writer. She was 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. Her 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 also wrote 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, Linda was co-artistic director of Theatre Passe Muraille, along with Layne Coleman and Clarke Rogers. She received many awards for her contributions to the theatre world, and 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 Canadian Play Awards for Jessica (1986) and Alien Creature (2000); and a Quizanne International Festival award for Jessica (1987). She was nominated twice for the Governor General’s Literary Award. In addition to her plays, Griffiths wrote 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’s Enbridge playRites Festival in 2007. Linda passed away in September 2014.
