Jackie Crossland

Individual

Roles

Actor, Artist, Director, Producer, Writer

Biography

Jackie Crossland was born in Barrie, Ontario, in 1943 and grew up in Port Arthur and Fort William (Thunder Bay). She moved to Vancouver and worked as a nanny in West Vancouver before deciding to get her GED because to work at the Hudson’s Bay Company. After one of her teachers encouraged her to go on to university, she enrolled at Simon Fraser University when it opened in the early 1970s and became involved in extracurricular theatre projects. After graduating, Crossland acted, wrote, and directed for several theatre companies in Vancouver and Toronto, including the Vancouver Playhouse, the Vancouver East Cultural Centre, Tamahnous Theatre, and Savage God. She had a speaking role in Robert Altman’s film McCabe & Mrs. Miller, and she played the recurring character Nurse Bea Cross in The Beachcombers TV series, among many other film and TV credits. Jackie then began to do theatre with street kids. This work led to her becoming the administrator of Low Cost Labour, where she made many friends who remained important to her for the rest of her life. After Low Cost, she opened her own arts administration business, Crossland Consulting. From there, she became an administrator for Headlines Theatre, Public Dreams, and Tamahnous Theatre.

Jackie was also a visual artist who created acrylic paintings, collages, and tile mosaics. grunt gallery hosted a one-woman show of her work in the late 1980s. In 1988, Jackie and Nora D. Randall fell in love and started their life partnership, as well as the theatre and storytelling company Random Acts. Together they wrote, produced, and directed stories about lesbians and working women that were presented in festivals in Canada and the United States. Collateral Damage and The House of Agnes, were picked as Best of the Vancouver Fringe. Jackie and Nora also toured the province and told stories at many labour gatherings. After retiring from Headlines Theatre in 2008, Jackie returned to painting as her major artistic expression, with a particular interest in making and trading art cards. She also took a course in watercolour, which became her passion until the end of her life in 2012.

Adapted from BC Alliance for Arts + Culture, 2012

Collection

grunt gallery Programming Archive (Artist)

Related programs

Toyland (Artist)
Who are these people? (Artist)
Queer City: The Queer Series and The Two Spirit Series (Artist)

Related Archive, Library & Publication Objects

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