HENRY WOOLF AWARD FOR CONTINUING ACHIEVEMENT
The Henry Woolf Continuing Achievement Award honours an individual or group in the Saskatoon area for outstanding contribution, dedication, and achievement within the theatre community. The recipient(s) will have shown a significant contribution to theatre in Saskatoon and area.
This Award may be presented to a member of the community from any background (directors, performers, administrators, stage managers, technicians, patrons, etc). Nominations are invited from the public each year, and the SATAwards’ Steering Committee chooses the recipient.
Please keep in mind that this nomination is not for an individual’s work in a particular show that you saw – the jury will take care of that – but for continuing achievement in any area.
ABOUT HENRY WOOLF
James O’Shea, Henry Woolf and Chip Chuipka in The Caretaker, Persephone Theatre, 2013. (Gord Waldner/ StarPhoenix)
Henry Woolf has been described as “a living icon of the theatrical avant-garde, an actor who throughout the 1960s would appear (for pitiful pay) in any play that broke new boundaries” (Changing Stages, Eyre and Wright, 2000).
Born in London in 1930, during school years Woolf met playwright and 2005 Nobel laureate Harold Pinter, who was a friend and collaborator for over 60 years (Woolf commissioned, directed, and acted in Pinter’s first play, The Room, in 1957).
During the 60s, Woolf acted in theatre projects alongside such contemporaries as Laurence Olivier, Orson Welles, Peter O’Toole and Ralph Richardson. His film and television career included roles in Marat/Sade (1967), The Lion in Winter (1968), The Rutles: All You Need is Cash (1978), Gorky Park (1983), Superman III (1983), and the cult classics The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) and Doctor Who (1977).
Woolf and his wife, actress/director Susan Williamson, have made their home in Saskatoon since 1978.
Woolf served as a faculty member at the University of Saskatchewan from 1983-1997 and as artistic director of Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan from 1991-2001. He has received the University’s Master Teacher Award (1994) and an honorary Doctor of Laws degree (2001). He is a member of the Saskatchewan Order of Merit and a recipient of the Saskatchewan Centennial Medal (2006). His most recent stage appearance was in Pinter’s The Caretaker for Persephone Theatre in 2013.
Henry Woolf’s memoir, Barcelona Is In Trouble, was published in 2017. For more information, please see his Wikipedia page and entry in the Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia.