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Eric Donkin, well-known character-actor born in Liverpool April 9, 1929. He came to Montreal with his mother shortly after his father died. His acting career began at age 11 with radio dramas. He trained at the Montreal Repertory School of the Theatre and at the National Theatre School (1950s). He has acted and played lead roles all over Canada, including the Montreal Repertory Theatre (where he worked with Christopher Plummer and John Colicos), Neptune Theatre, Centaur Theatre, the National Arts Centre, and Young People’s Theatre. In 1960 he spent 6 seasons at the Manitoba Theatre Centre under Artistic Director John Hirsch (O'Neill).
From Winnipeg, he moved to Stratford, Ontario. He is perhaps best known for his decades-long association with the Stratford Theatre with which he toured Europe and the former USSR. Among his memorable roles there were Estragon in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot (1968) and Ko-Ko in the Gilbert and Sullivan musical Mikado (1982-1987, 1992), which according to Patrick B. O'Neill, "he performed over 500 times in Stratford, London, and New York and for which he won the Dora Mavor Moore award for Best Performance in a Musical (1987)."
He died on March 17, 1998 while rehearsing for the Stratford Festival's Much Ado About Nothing.
Sources
O'Neill, Patrick B. "Eric Albert Donkin." The Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia. Mat 14, 2008. Accessed on October 8, 2024. Available at https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/eric-albert-donkin.