Ensemble Bios

Neil Barclay

Neil has been a member of the Shaw Festival Ensemble for twenty-three seasons and this year he will appear as Fire Chief Willie Conklin in Ragtime and Endicott (Post) in His Girl Friday. In 1994 he played Kruger (Journal of Commerce) in The Front Page, so he is excited to be back in the Criminal Courts Building.

Neil trained at the National Theatre School of Canada, graduated in 1988 and moved to Toronto the next year. He joined the Shaw Ensemble in 1990, and has appeared in over sixty plays, musicals, readings, radio broadcasts and workshops. His first shows were Misalliance (where he played an invented character named Bill Burt, who delivered a steam bath), and the last of the Risk series Ubu Rex (as The Whole Polish Army). The next year, Neil was seen as circus strongman Rodrigo Quast in Lulu, and Carmen Mirande in A Connecticut Yankee. From then on the roles got significantly more normal: Oxford undergraduate Jack Chesney in Charley’s Aunt, Bluebeard in Saint Joan, The Vicomte de Nanjac in An Ideal Husband, Lumley Lancaster in Mr Cinders, Christy Dudgeon in The Devil’s Disciple, Henry Stirling in Will Any Gentleman?, Boris Kolenkhov in You Can’t Take It With You, Charles Dumby in Lady Windermere’s Fan, ‘A’ in Village Wooing, Dr Leo Schutzmacher in The Doctor’s Dilemma, Albert Godby in Still Life, The Chairman in The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Slightly Soiled in Peter Pan, Pothinus in Caesar and Cleopatra, Endicott Sims in Detective Story, Sam Wurlitzer in Happy End, Ludlow Lowell in Pal Joey, Uncle Willie in High Society, Thomas Marvel in The Invisible Man, Fatty Arbuckle in Mack and Mabel, The General in Tristan, John Reid in After the Dance, Mr Appopolous in Wonderful Town, John Bolton in Star Chamber, Boris Pischik in The Cherry Orchard, and Stanley in One Touch of Venus. Last season he played Father Manuel in the world premiere of Jay Turvey and Paul Sportelli’s Maria Severa, and Alfred Dolittle in the record-breaking smash hit production of My Fair Lady.

Before he came to the Shaw Festival, Neil was seen in a variety of roles in theatres across Canada. His stage debut was in his native Montreal as Third Innkeeper in St Monica’s Elementary School production of The Nativity Play in 1975. At Loyola High School he won acclaim as Doc Gibbs in Our Town and Sir Wilfrid Robarts, Q.C. in Witness for the Prosecution. At CEGEP John Abbott College he was seen as Mr McHabe in Up The Down Staircase, in several roles in the controversial Gay Nineties Scrapbook, and in the title role of Toad of Toad Hall. Other credits include, productions with APA Montreal, Les Productions de la Lune Verte, Toronto Free Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille, National Arts Centre, Alberta Theatre Projects, Stagecraft ’97, Geva Theatre Center, Touchmark Theatre, Tarragon Theatre, Theatre North West, Studio 180 and Acting Up Stage.

For many years Neil has been an inveterate and passionate traveler. He’s racked up 36 countries now and is planning on getting to the other 170 or so very soon. Since last season he has been at the top of Blackpool Tower, spent two very cold days at the Biennale di Venezia, eaten a Belgian waffle in Brussels, toured Castle Howard and the Moors in Yorkshire, climbed the Pyramid del Luna in Téotihuacan (outside Mexico City), had his first Philly cheesesteak in Philadelphia, gone to his first rodeo in Fort Worth (Texas), and attended the opening night of Maria Severa in Krákow (where no small amount of vodka was put away).