Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia

• Home
• About
• Submissions
• Links

Fox, David

Actor David Fox was born in 1941 in Swastika, Northern Ontario; died November 13, 2021 of cancer. He taught high school from 1963 to 1972.

He had a particular interest in the development of new Canadian works, and played rural characters in the premieres of several historically significant collective creations at Theatre Passe Muraille, including The Farm Show (1972); 1837:The Farmer's Revolt; As Far as the Eye Can See (by Rudy Wiebe); Studhorse Man; Les Maudits Anglais; and Them Donnellys. He appeared in John Murrell's Further West (directed by Robin Phillips) at Theatre Calgary in 1981; in Anne Chislett's Quiet in the Land at Blyth Festival 1981; Ted Johns' Garrison's Garage at Blyth Festival; in George F. Walker's Art of War and Nothing Sacred for Toronto's Factory Theatre and Canadian Stage.

Other significant theatre credits include the part of Angus in The Drawer Boy by Michael Healey, in the Theatre Passe Muraille production (1999), and in the national tour (2001/02); the role of Ezra Pound in the 2001 Stratford Festival production of The Trials of Ezra Pound by Timothy Findley; Dodge in the National Arts Centre/Segal Centre for Performing Arts' co-production of Buried Child by Sam Shepard in 2009; Stalin in Lenin's Embalmers by Vern Thiessen at the Winnipeg Jewish Theatre in 2010; Gregory Soloman in The Price by Arthur Miller at Soulpepper Theatre Company in 2011; and Calum MacDonald in No Great Mischief by David S. Young in 2004 and 2012. In 2015, he played King Lear in a production by North Bay's Watershed Shakespeare Collective at Theatre Passe Muraille.

Of his role in the Canadian premiere of Lenin's Embalmers, Kevin Prokosh wrote: "The terrific cast is led by the brilliant Toronto actor David Fox as a Stalin who is mad as he is murderous. 'Be quiet or I'll kill you,' he growls to an underling in a way there is no doubt that he means it. The loopy, vacant look on Fox's face when he declares he wants to be known as the father of mother Russia is chilling" (Winnipeg Free Press 16 Oct 2010).

Of Fox's portrait of Solomon in The Price, Robert Cushman wrote: "The part is a gift for any actor, but it’s hard to imagine it better done than it is by David Fox who, like his character, is both cunning and honest: a secular holy fool. For an actor with so strong and idiosyncratic a presence, Fox is remarkably versatile; this performance, wizened and stooping, has nothing in common with his beaming farmer in The Drawer Boy or his vulpine Rumsfeld in Stuff Happens beyond their completeness" (National Post 9 Sept 2011).

His many television appearances include a recurring role as teacher Clive Pettibone in Road to Avonlea. Film credits include Paul Quarrington's Moon and Mann and A Man's Life (2001 Montreal Film Festival); 2001: A Space Travesty with Leslie Nielsen; and Washed Up, written and directed by Michael DiCarlo.

He was the recipient of a Sterling Award for his role in Paul Quarrington's The Invention of Poetry, and of the Dora Mavor Moore Award for his role in the 1999 production of The Drawer Boy at Theatre Passe Muraille. He received the Order of Canada for his contributions to new Canadian plays.

Source: James DeFelice, Oxford Companion to Canadian Theatre, eds. Eugene Benson and L.W. Conolly, Toronto: Oxford UP, 1989.

Profile by Anne Nothof, Athabasca University.

Last updated 2021-11-15

Fox, Julie

Set and costume designer, with an extraordinary wide range of work in Canadian theatre, dance, and opera, based in Toronto Ontario and the Czech Republic. Julie Fox grew up in Waterdown, near Hamilton Ontario, where she was involved from the age of nine with Waterdown Village Theatre, an ambitious amateur company run by Lisbie and Mike Rae and Gord and Janet Raymond. At 18, she moved with her family to New Zealand, and then travelled to Australia, where she worked as a stage hand for a year with the Sydney Opera House. There, she experienced a wide range of theatre from the wings, including Kabuki. After travelling throughout South East Asia, she returned to Canada in 1990, where she encountered the work of Carbone 14 in Montreal, and was inspired to pursue a career in theatre. She graduated from the National Theatre School of Canada in 1994.

Her first set design was for Theatre New Brunswick with Artistic Director Michael Shamata. Since then, she has designed sets and costumes in Toronto, including a long history with the Theatre Centre, and in regional theatres across the country. She has particularly enjoyed working with director and playwright, Daniel Brooks, for whom she has designed sets for Possible Worlds (Theatre Passe Muraille), Insomnia (Theatre Centre 1997), Endgame (Soulpepper Theatre Company), and The Full Light of Day (Electric Company Theatre/Banff Centre for the Arts 2018). She has also worked with Brendan Healy at Buddies in Bad Times, and Chris Abraham, who introduced her to the Stratford Festival to design his production of For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again (Patterson Theatre, 2010).

Julie Fox has designed for eight seasons at Stratford at the Festival, Avon, Patterson, and Studio theatres, including productions of Macbeth, The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Othello, and The Best Brothers by Daniel MacIvor. Her 2017 design for Tartuffe (Festival Stage, dir. Abraham) created a flexible domestic space complete with bar and expresso machine, that brought Moliere’s play into present time while suggesting the original historical context. Her extraordinary ornate 18th century set and costumes for The School for Scandal (Avon, dir. Antoni Cimolino), introduced the audience to the opulent room of a hypocritical, privileged society.

For Soulpepper Theatre Company, she has designed sets for A Brimful of Asha (2016), The Play’s the Thing, The Long Valley and A Christmas Carol. For Crow’s Theatre, she designed The Wedding Party, The Watershed, The Seagull, Someone Else, Seeds, I, Claudia, and The Country. For Buddies in Bad Times, her work includes Arigato, Tokyo by Daniel MacIvor, The Maids, and Blasted. She has also designed for Canadian Stage, National Arts Centre, Tarragon Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille, Necessary Angel, Why Not Theatre, Volcano Theatre, Citadel Theatre, Theatre Junction, Manitoba Theatre Centre, Grand Theatre, Blyth Festival, Segal Centre for Performing Arts, adelheid, and Chartier Danse. In 2019, she designed opulent period costumes for Cyrano de Bergerac at the Shaw Festival, which was remounted in 2022.

Julie Fox has received four Dora Mavor Moore Awards -- including for Insomnia (Necessary Angel) and Possible Worlds (Theatre Passe Muraille), and has been nominated many times. She has also received the Virginia Cooper Award for costume design; META and Sterling Award nominations.

She teaches at the National Theatre School of Canada.

Source: www.thetitleblock.com

Profile by Anne Nothof, Athabasca University.

Last updated 2022-03-03

Fox, Michael J.

Internationally famed actor born Michael Andrew Fox in Edmonton, Alberta, June 9, 1961, and raised in Burnaby, British Columbia. (He took the initial J. as an homage to American character actor Michael J. Pollard.)

Michael J. Fox was an army brat, who, at 15, appeared on television and then began a non-stop career in theatre, TV and in film - his most famous role being in the film Back to the Future. He moved to Los Angeles in 1979, and maintains residences in Los Angeles and New York with his wife, actor Tracey Pollan, and their three children, but he retains his Canadian citizenship.

In 1991, he was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease and has undergone treatments (some experimental). In January, 2000, he announced he was leaving his TV series Spin City, due to the illness, and because he wished to spend more time with his family and help find a cure.

His memoir, Lucky Man, was published in March, 2002.

The Michael J Fox Theatre in Burnaby BC was named in his honour in 1995. In 2017, he was awarded a Governor General’s Award in Performing Arts.

Last updated 2020-07-17