Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia
Gishler, Richard
Actor, born December 31, 1947 in Edmonton, Alberta, who performed in most of the city’s theatres and across Canada in a wide variety of roles. As theatre critic Liz Nicholls attests in her column, 12thNight.ca (30 Dec 2021), Richard Gishler was “part of [Edmonton theatre’s] origin story, its history, its improbable narrative drive … and its heart.”
Known to his friends as “Gish,” he took theatre classes at the age of 9, toured with the Playground Players, and performed with his harlequin marionettes at the Storyland Valley Zoo. He studied theatre at the University of Alberta.
Gishler was a talented comedian, and consummate theatre company player, “professional and passionate in his work” (Nicholls). He performed at early incarnations of the Walterdale Theatre; Theatre 3 in the 1970s (Alice in Wonderland); Citadel Theatre (Lightfoot McTague in Sherlock, 1975, and the Prince in Romeo and Juliet, both directed by John Neville); Phoenix Theatre in the 1980s (As Is, by William M. Hoffman, portraying the effects of the AIDs epidemic 1980s on a group of friends in New York City); Northern Light Theatre (Oberon in an outdoor production of A Midsummer-Night’s Dream); and Stage West dinner theatre, where his comedic skills were fully in evidence. Gishler excelled in productions of plays by Michel Tremblay: Damnée Manon sacrée Sandra and Hosanna (Workshop West Theatre), with courageous performances at a time when the gay community was stigmatized in Alberta.
One of his last performances was in a zoom reading of a new play by Darrin Hagen, entitled 10 Funerals, streamed on-line by Shadow Theatre during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021 that closed theatres across Canada.
Richard Gishler died in December, 2021 at the age of 74, of cancer.
Source: Liz Nicholls. 12thNight.ca (30 Dec 2021).
Last updated 2022-01-05
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