Gascon-Thomas Award 2000

Jean-Pierre Ronfard and Kenneth Welsh:
Gascon-Thomas Award Winners, 2000

Montreal, November 10, 2000 – The National Theatre School of Canada (NTS) proudly announces that actor Kenneth Welsh, and actor, director, playwright Jean-Pierre Ronfard are this year’s winners of the 10th annual Gascon-Thomas Award; Canada’s only bi-cultural theatre prize.

The Gascon-Thomas Award recognizes exceptional achievement in theatre. Each year, two artists are singled out who have not only helped to shape the world of theatre, but served as role-models to NTS students as well. The award was created in 1990 by the NTS’s Board of Governors in memory of two of the School’s founders, Jean Gascon and Powys Thomas. One Anglophone and one Francophone are chosen each year to receive the prize. The award is strictly honorary. Past winners include: Herbert Whittaker (1990), Martha Henry (1992), Diana Leblanc (1996), R.H. Thomson (1997), John Murrell (1998) and Christopher Newton (1999).

Jean-Pierre Ronfard

Jean-Pierre Ronfard’s impact on Quebec theatre is incontestable. Of French origin, Ronfard arrived in Montreal in 1960 and became the School’s first director of the Interprétation française section, a position he held until 1964. He founded, in 1975, with several actors, the Théâtre Expérimental de Montréal that would later become the Nouveau Théâtre Expérimental in 1979. Among his numerous activities, the author of Vie et Mort du Roi Boiteux and the first director of Réjean Ducharme’s Ha ! ha ! and Claude Gauvreau’s Les Oranges sont vertes, never stopped teaching acting and theatre history classes at the NTS.

Kenneth Welsh

Ever since graduating from the National Theatre School in 1965, Kenneth Welsh has been working continuously and successfully. Highly respected by his peers, he is acknowledged as one of the most talented and exceptional artists of his generation. Welsh has appeared in over 30 films and has more than 60 television credits to his name. His astounding range runs from Shakespeare at Stratford and Broadway Theatre in New York, to musicals, comedies and television mini-series. Welsh’s film credits include Absolute Power, Legends of the Fall, Margaret’s Museum and Hiroshima. To American viewers, he is likely best known for his role as Wyndom Earle in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks.

Welsh has raised the bar for English-speaking Canadian actors. While sustaining a career in the United States, his primary dedication has been to perform Canadian stories that comprise part of the canon of our mythology and heritage. He is by example and personal commitment an inspiration and model to students and emerging artists.