Theatre founder, TV actress proud of progress made during 20 years
May 18, 2006, Saskatoon StarPhoenix by Joanne Paulson SP Features Editor
It was an emotional homecoming for Janet Wright, who has not been back to Saskatoon for 20 years.
The co-founder of Persephone Theatre and star of Corner Gas returned Wednesday as honorary chair of Persephone's capital campaign. What she sees today astounds her.
"I couldn't find anything. It's huge," she said in an interview.
"I haven't come back since I lost my parents and Susan. Too many memories," she said, blinking back tears. A few more escaped later, during the formal launch of the campaign, Building on a River of Dreams.
Wright founded Persephone with her husband at the time, Brian Richmond, and her sister Susan Wright. Susan and Wright's parent's, Jack and Ruth, died in a fire at Stratford in 1991.
Determined not to be overly emotional, Wright continued with her observations of Saskatoon.
"I went out to Eight Street and thought, what? It used to be the Grosvenor Park Shopping Centre and the A&W. I just couldn't believe my eyes," said Wright, who lives in Vancouver.
"We drove in, and I said OK, I want to go by where my dad used to have a business on Second Avenue, and I couldn't find it. I couldn't even recognize Second Avenue - so many people."
"It's unrecognizable," she said of Saskatoon. "It looks like a world-class city."
Persephone president David Gerecke said he was pleased by how many people remembered Wright, and that she was one of the theatre's founders.
"She will be our most famous ambassador."
Wright had no expectations that Persephone, the little theatre she founded, would be a going concern so many years later. In its first season, Persephone performed at the Mendel Art Gallery, and in its second, at the university. Today, Persephone has its own home, and is working on the new one by the riverbank.
"I didn't think anyone would come in who had that kind of passion, because it's so hard to get it keeping going.
"But then Tibor (Feheregyhazi) came in, and it's been most of his life."
Feheregyhazi became Persephone's artistic director in 1982, and Wright gives him most of the credit for Persephone's success.
"This theatre would not still be going without Tibor," she later told a luncheon crowd. "This is Tibor's theatre and I'll take no credit except for the fact that we started it."
But the Wrights had a great passion for theatre when they founded Persephone, as well. Wright said that she wanted an audience to be "embarrassed they were watching me, because they were watching something so personal."
She prefers to do things in stage that people get "kicked out of the party for."
Wright returns to taping Corner Gas next Tuesday, an experience she is really enjoying. Wright plays Emma, mother of main character Brent Leroy (Brent Butt). "I love it, and I love the cast. We just get along, that's why the show works so well. There's a natural easiness."
Wright has known Eric Peterson, her spouse on the series and also a Saskatchewan actor, since he was 18. Wright, 61, thinks she is a year older than Peterson.
"He was very cute when he was 18. Now he's really old," joked Wright. "No, he's adorable."
Another role the Genie award-winning Wright is known for is Ethel Shatford in The Perfect Storm with George Clooney.
Clooney is "exactly what you want him to be. He's the nicest guy I ever met," said Wright, who notes that everyone asks her what he is like.
"I think it's because he comes from a showbiz family - you know, Rosemary Clooney (his aunt) and Jose Ferrer (his uncle) and all those guys. It took him a long time to make it.
"But talk about respectful of his fans. When we were in Maine, in a very small town where the story takes place, people would come down to the trailers - because we were kind of by the water - and wait for him. Hundreds of them. And he would come out a couple of times a day and sign all the autographs.
"He's just a genuinely nice guy who happens to be handsome. He's really handsome, but normal."
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