Lorena Gale
{{short description|Canadian actress, playwright and theatre director}}
{{Infobox person
| image = Lorena Gale gatecon.jpg
| caption = Gale at Gatecon, July 30, 2005
| birth_date = {{birth date|1958|05|09|mf=y}}
| birth_place = Montreal, Quebec, Canada
| death_date = {{death date and age|2009|06|21|1958|05|09|mf=y}}
| death_place = Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
| occupation = Actress, playwright, theatre director
| years_active = 1981–2009
| othername = Lorena Gayle
Lorineda Gayle
| spouse = {{marriage|John Cooper|1988}}
}}
Lorena Gale (May 9, 1958 – June 21, 2009){{cite news|url=http://www.caprica-city.de/index.php?pn_go=details&id=0002430|title=Lorena Gale (1958-2009)|publisher=Caprica-City.de|date=2009-06-25|access-date=2009-06-25}} was a Canadian actress, playwright and theatre director. She was active onstage and in films and television since the 1980s. She also authored two award-winning plays, Angélique and Je me souviens.
Life and career
Gale was born in Montreal, Quebec.{{Cite web|url=http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/lorena-gale/|title=Lorena Gale|last=Hustak|first=Alan|date=24 January 2010|website=The Canadian Encyclopedia|publisher=Historica Foundation of Canada|access-date=March 8, 2016}} She studied at Concordia University and the National Theatre School and completed a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver in 2005.
Her performances on stage for Lorraine Hansberry's Raisin in the Sun and Joseph A. Walker's River Niger won her the Montreal Gazette Theatre Critics Award for Outstanding Performance in 1981.
In 1985 she became the artistic director of Montréal's Black Theatre Workshop.{{Cite journal|last=Bayne|first=Clarence|year=2001|title=Le Black Theatre Workshop de Montréal: un nouveau bilan|journal=L'Annuaire théâtral: Revue québécoise d'études théâtrales|volume=29|pages=141–155|via=Erudit}} She then studied playwriting at the Playwrights' Workshop Montréal.
After moving to Vancouver in 1988, Lorena won a 1991 Jessie Richardson Award for best supporting actress as Normal Jean in The Colored Museum (1990) .
Her play, Angélique, the story of executed slave Marie-Joseph Angelique, was the winner of the 1995 duMaurier National Playwriting Competition in Canada.{{Cite journal|last=Gale|first=Lorena|year=1995|title=Writing "Angelique" (Includes excerpt)|journal=Canadian Theatre Review|volume=83|pages=20–23|doi=10.3138/ctr.83.005 |id={{ProQuest|211995628}}}} Her writing explores the nature of being black and mixed race and belonging in Canada.{{Cite book|title=Canada: Images of a post/national society|last=Clarke|first=George Elliott|publisher=P.I.E.—Peter Lang|year=2009|isbn=978-90-5201-485-2|location=New York|pages=263–264|chapter=Strategies for Legitimizing Difference. Mixed-Race Resistance in the Works of Andrea Thompson and Lorena Gale, Two African-Canadian Writers}} In 2000, she produced her play Je me souviens, a monologue about her experiences growing up in Montreal, at the Firehall Arts Centre in Vancouver, BC.{{Cite web |last=BC |first=Popgun Media-- Vancouver |title=Our History |url=https://firehallartscentre.ca/about-us/our-history/ |access-date=2022-03-17 |website=Firehall Arts Centre |language=en}} The play was published by Talonbooks in 2001.{{Cite web |title=Je me souviens » Books » Talonbooks |url=https://talonbooks.com/books/je-me-souviens |access-date=2022-03-17 |website=talonbooks.com}}
She appeared in such movies as The Hotel New Hampshire, Another Cinderella Story, Ernest Goes to School, Fantastic Four, Traitor, The Chronicles of Riddick, The Mermaid Chair, and The Exorcism of Emily Rose. She has guest starred on programs such as The X-Files, Stargate SG-1, Smallville and Kingdom Hospital. Until August 2005, she starred as Priestess Elosha on the SciFi Channel television program Battlestar Galactica.
Gale also lent her voice to several animated works such as RoboCop: Alpha Commando, The Bitsy Bears, Camp Candy, The Adventures of Corduroy and Hurricanes.
Gale's final film role was as a librarian in Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins, which was dedicated to her.
Death
Gale died following a battle with throat cancer on June 21, 2009, at age 51.
Filmography
| class="wikitable sortable" | ||||
| Year
! Title ! Role ! class="unsortable" | Notes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1982 | Visiting Hours | Nurse 1 | ||
| 1984 | data-sort-value="Hotel New Hampshir, The" | The Hotel New Hampshire | Dark Inge | ||
| 1987 | Wild Thing | Scooter | ||
| 1989 | Cousins | Cosmetic Demonstrator | ||
| 1989 | data-sort-value="Fly II, The" | The Fly II | Woman | ||
| 1992 | Farther West | |||
| 1994 | Ernest Goes to School | History Teacher | ||
| 1996 | Maternal Instincts | Anita | ||
| 1997 | Indefensible: The Truth About Edward Brannigan | Cheryl Drew | TV movie | |
| 1998 | American Dragons | Captain Talman | ||
| 2000 | Snow Day | Radio Mother | ||
| 2000 | Holiday Heart | Mrs. Owens | TV movie | |
| 2000 | Screwed | Angry Momma | ||
| 2001 | Freddy Got Fingered | Psychiatrist / Social Worker | ||
| 2002 | Halloween: Resurrection | Nurse Wells | ||
| 2003 | Agent Cody Banks | Waitress | ||
| 2003 | Battlestar Galactica | Elosha | Miniseries | |
| 2004–2005, 2008 | Battlestar Galactica | Elosha | TV series | |
| 2004 | data-sort-value="Butterfly Effect, The" | The Butterfly Effect | Mrs. Boswell | ||
| 2004 | data-sort-value="Perfect Score, The" | The Perfect Score | Proctor | ||
| 2004 | data-sort-value="Chronicles of Riddick, The" | The Chronicles of Riddick | Defense Minister | ||
| 2005 | Bob the Butler | Dr. Wilma | ||
| 2005 | |2005 | Fantastic Four | Old Lady With Car #1 | |
| 2005 | data-sort-value="Exorcism of Emily Rose, The" | The Exorcism of Emily Rose | Jury Foreman | ||
| 2005 | Neverwas | Judy | ||
| 2006 | Slither | Janene | ||
| 2006 | data-sort-value="Mermaid Chair, The" | The Mermaid Chair | Hepzibah | TV movie | |
| 2006 | data-sort-value="Foursome, The" | The Foursome | Marjorie | ||
| 2006 | Supernatural | Landlady | ||
| 2007 | Love Notes | Aveva Marley | ||
| 2007 | Things We Lost in the Fire | N.A. Meeting Person | ||
| 2008 | Another Cinderella Story | Helga | ||
| 2008 | data-sort-value="X-Files: I Want to Believe, The" | The X-Files: I Want to Believe | On Screen Doctor | ||
| 2008 | Traitor | Dierdre Horn | ||
| 2008 | data-sort-value="Day the Earth Stood Still, The" | The Day the Earth Stood Still | Scientist #2 | ||
| 2009 | Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins | Librarian | TV movie, posthumous release |
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
{{commons category}}
- [http://scifitalk.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=18387 Podcast conversation] with Lorena Gale on Sci-Fi Talk (about 24 minutes in length; Gale talked about her recent roles)
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20060223090828/http://www.fb10.uni-bremen.de/anglistik/kerkhoff/BlackCanadian/Gale/Gale.html Lorena Gale, Angélique (1999)] (from the Way Back Machine, June 30, 2007)
- {{IMDb name|id=0301874|name=Lorena Gale}}
- {{TV Guide person |lorena-gale/253530}}
- [http://www.canadiantheatre.com/dict.pl?term=Gale%2C%20Lorena Lorena Gale] article at [http://www.canadiantheatre.com/ Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gale, Lorena}}
Category:20th-century Canadian dramatists and playwrights
Category:Actresses from Montreal
Category:Anglophone Quebec people
Category:Black Canadian actresses
Category:Deaths from cancer in British Columbia
Category:Canadian women dramatists and playwrights
Category:Canadian film actresses
Category:Canadian television actresses
Category:Canadian theatre directors
Category:Canadian women theatre directors
Category:Canadian voice actresses
Category:Writers from Montreal
Category:20th-century Canadian women writers
Category:Concordia University alumni
Category:Simon Fraser University alumni
Category:National Theatre School of Canada alumni
Category:Black Canadian dramatists and playwrights
Category:Canadian artistic directors