If the content you are seeing is presented as unstyled HTML your browser is an older version that cannot support cascading style sheets. If you wish to upgrade your browser you may download Mozilla or Internet Explorer for Windows.

Grimwood, Freddie

Lighting Designer, Freddie Grimwood, was born in Great Britain, and began his career at the Oxford Playhouse, soon moving to London to accept the post of Production Stage Manager with Western Theatre Ballet, which worked in association with Sadler's Wells Opera.

Since his arrival in Canada in 1969, he worked with the English and French production students at the National Theatre School of Canada as Technical Director; his contract also stipulated that he be in charge of the Monument National. Realising that Canada's oldest working theatre was an asset few other international theatre schools could offer, he became a pivotal member of the ad hoc team that went on to renovate and re-equip the building for its Centenary in 1993.

In 1999 Freddie Grimwood was awarded the Educational Achievement Award, from the Canadian Institute for Theatre Technology (CITT), for his work over nearly three decades at the National Theatre School of Canada.

As a Lighting Designer, and long-time member of the Associated Designers of Canada, he worked frequently at Centaur Theatre (designs for both Alexandre Marine's controversial production of Uncle Vanya in 1993, and for Bulgakov's Master & Margarita in 1994). Other notable designs were for the world premières of Vittorio Rossi's The Last Adam (1994), and Paradise by the River (1998), both directed by Joel Miller. Over the years, he also designed the lighting for several productions for L'Opéra de Montréal, one of the most striking being Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera (1990).

More recently, he has fulfilled two lifelong ambitions, becoming first, an avid theatre-goer, and second, writing regularly about a great passion, Iberian wines, for the Montreal magazine, Vins et Vignobles. He now lives near Lisbon, Portugal, where the outstanding natural light hardly needs improvement.

Profile by Katherine Grimwood

Last updated 2021-01-15