On Monday, September 23, at the Four Seasons Hotel Toronto, the Stratford Festival honoured one of Canada’s leading stage and screen actors – Andrea Martin. 

Andrea Martin was born in Portland, Maine, and she is a two-time Tony Award winning Broadway favorite, whose credits include Noises Off, Pippin, Young Frankenstein, Oklahoma!, Candide, and My Favorite Year, among others. She is also known for her TV appearances on shows such as SCTV and Great News and films such as My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

Martin attended Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts, and was cast in a touring production of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown following graduation. She moved to Toronto in 1970 and in 1978 joined the Stratford Festival company, appearing in Candide and Private Lives with Dame Maggie Smith (the 2012 Stratford Festival Gala Honoree), Brian Bedford and Nicholas Pennell. During that decade, she would find work in a Canadian production of Godspell, two horror films (1973’s Cannibal Girls and 1974’s Black Christmas) and the popular SCTV series. She would appear in a variety of roles in the comedy sketch series (including Second City Television station manager Edith Prickley) and was also a valued member of the writing team, who racked up a grand total of nine Emmy Award nominations in 1982 and 1983 (winning two) and Martin herself also earned an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy or Variety or Music Series in 1982.

Martin burst onto the Broadway stage in 1992, officially making her Broadway debut in My Favorite Year, playing the role of Alice Miller. For her show-stealing performance she earned her first Tony Award, as well as a Drama Desk Award and a Theatre World Award. Her next three Broadway outings would be roles in musical revivals, originating the roles of the Old Lady in Candide in the spring of 1997 and Aunt Eller in Oklahoma! in the spring of 2002, earning a second and third Tony Award nomination in the process, and finally assuming the role of Golde in Fiddler on the Roof. In 2007 she starred in Mel Brooks’ musical comedy Young Frankenstein, receiving a fourth Tony Award nomination for her portrayal of Frau Blucher, and in the spring of 2009 she added a straight play to her Broadway résumé with the role of Juliette in a revival of Exit the King. She returned to Broadway in 2013 in Pippin resulting in her winning her second Tony and Drama Desk Awards. She also starred in James Lapine’s Act One for Lincoln Center Theater in 2014. In 2015, she made her Roundabout Theatre Company debut in the Broadway revival of Michael Frayn’s Noises Off and earned her sixth Tony Award nomination for her performance as Dotty Otley.

On screen, aside from her work on SCTV, Martin has notably appeared in recurring roles in such series as Roxie, The Martin Short Show, Damon, George and Martha, Working the Engels, and, most recently, as Marilyn Kessler on Hulu’s Difficult People, as Carol Wendelson on NBC’s Great News, and as Francesca Lovatelli on CBS’ The Good Fight. Her many film credits include Hedwig and the Angry Inch, The Producers, Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, and the role of Aunt Vuola in My Big Fat Greek Wedding and My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2.

All proceeds from this gala evening support the key artistic priorities of the Stratford Festival.