Dual Canadian-U.S. citizen JERRY WASSERMAN is an educator, actor, writer, and theatre critic.
With a Ph.D. in English from Cornell University, Jerry taught in the English Department at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver from 1972-2016 and was cross-appointed in the Department of Theatre & Film from 1993-2016. He served as Head of Theatre & Film from 2007-12. He is currently Professor Emeritus of English & Theatre. Jerry has published widely on drama and theatre, especially Canadian theatre. His Modern Canadian Plays, the standard textbook in Canadian drama classes, has been in print for 37 years, currently in two volumes in its 5th edition. He has given talks all over the world on literature, theatre, literacy, and music, including twice at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
A member of Canadian Actors Equity since 1978, Jerry has appeared on stage for many Vancouver theatre companies including the Arts Club, Playhouse, City Stage, Westcoast Actors, New Play Centre, United Players and Western Gold. He served as President of the Board of Playwrights Theatre Centre, 2004-08. As a member of ACTRA and the Union of BC Performers, Jerry has over 200 film and TV credits, including appearances in multiple episodes of 30 TV series.
Jerry was a theatre critic on CBC radio’s The Afternoon Show, 1987-2003. He has since served as a theatre critic for the Vancouver Province and (currently) Vancouver Sun. Around 400 of his articles and reviews have appeared in those papers. His website, www.vancouverplays.com, has received almost 1.6 million views since 2004 and contains about 1000 of his reviews. As a public intellectual, he has frequently appeared on Vancouver stages as an interviewer of well-known international artists including Kim Cattrall, Stephen Sondheim, Margaret Atwood, Ian MacEwan, Robert Lepage, and Ian Rankin. Jerry’s honours and awards include UBC’s Killam University Teaching Prize and the Dorothy Somerset Award for Performance and Development in the Performing and Creative
Arts, UBCP/ACTRA’s Sam Payne Award, a Jessie Award from the Greater Vancouver Professional Theatre Association for Career Achievement, and election to the B.C. Entertainment Hall of Fame, with a star on the Granville Street sidewalk across from the Orpheum Theatre.
