Joseph Ziegler

Early Life and Career

Joseph Ziegler was fascinated by Shakespeare. Strongly influenced by Michael Langham's productions at the Guthrie Theater, Ziegler earned a BA in theatre at the University of Minnesota. He was accepted into the National Theatre School of Canada in Montreal and graduated in 1979.

After moving to Toronto, Ziegler was hired immediately by Theatre passe muraille to act in October Soldiers (about the October Crisis) and for CBC Radio’s version of Thornton Wilder's Our Town, starring Lorne Greene. Engagements with the Toronto Arts Theatre and Tarragon Theatre followed.

From 1980 to 1982, Ziegler was a member of Christopher Newton's first Shaw Festival acting ensemble. He also appeared on TV in CBC's Empire Inc. Western engagements at Regina's Globe Theatre and Victoria's Belfry Theatre came next.  

Career Highlights

In 1983, Michael Langham included Joseph Ziegler in Stratford's Young Company. From 1984 to 1987, Ziegler was part of the Stratford Festival's main company. He played such major Shakespearean roles as Berowne in Love's Labour's Lost, Hotspur in Henry IV Part One, Edgar in King Lear, Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night, Claudio in Measure for Measure, Posthumus in Cymbeline, and Trofimov in Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard. In 1987, as a volunteer understudy at Stratford, he also gave five unexpected performances as Othello.

Ziegler also made appearances in such television series as Street Legal, North of 60, ENG, Forever Knight, Top Cops, Side Effects, Dieppe and Relic Hunter. He returned in 1988 to the Shaw Festival in Voysey Inheritance, acting alongside his teacher Douglas Rain. That year, he toured in NYC with the off-Broadway Theater for a New Audience Company, playing Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew. In 1989, he played Macbeth alongside his wife Nancy as Lady Macbeth. Also that year, Robin Phillips invited him to be in The Philadelphia Story at both the Grand in London and the Citadel in Edmonton. He also played Clarence opposite Denzel Washington in a 1990 production of Richard III in New York’s Central Park.

In 1990, Joseph Ziegler made his first appearances at Toronto's Factory Theatre in George Walker's Love and Anger. He then starred in Heidi Chronicles for both the Manitoba Theatre Centre and the Royal Alexandra Theatre. These productions were succeeded by two full seasons at the Citadel with Robin Phillips, where among many roles Ziegler played Jacques in As You Like It, and Hamlet. In 1991, Phillips asked him to direct for the first time — a “two-hander” (a play with only two actors) titled Tete à Tete about the final days of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre. Phillips served as his designer. It was followed in 1992 by a second directorial success, The Diary of Anne Frank. Back in Toronto in 1993, Ziegler played Inspector Moffat in the TV pilot for Due South and became a regular in the CBC's Side Effects series in the role of Jim Barkin.

Ziegler directed Joanna Glass's If We Are Women for Theatre New Brunswick in 1995 and remounted it for London's Grand Theatre and the National Arts Centre in Ottawa a year later. In 1996, he was back acting at Tarragon in Jason Sherman's The Retreat and then hired to play Len Hubbard, a regular in the Black Harbour TV series (1996–98) filmed in Nova Scotia.

Ziegler still took time off to direct plays like Three Tall Women (1997) and Homeward Bound (1999) at London's Grand; Love's Labour's Lost (2003) for the Resurgence Theatre Company in an outdoor production in Newmarket, Ontario; Betrayal (2004) at Halifax's Neptune Theatre; How I Learned to Drive (1998) and Patience (1999) for Toronto's Canadian Stage; and seven productions during the summers for the Shaw Festival: The Two Mrs Carrolls (1997), The Shop at Sly Corner (1998), Widowers' Houses (2003), Ah Wilderness (2004), Major Barbara (2005), The Heiress (2006) and Getting Married (2008).

Theatre critic Richard Ouzounian in the Toronto Star talked about Ziegler's gift for “bringing Shaw's intimate plays to life.” He praised Ziegler's 2008 production of Getting Married for its "elevated comic style," pronouncing it the kind of production "where everyone looks good."

Later Career

Ziegler celebrated the new century at the Stratford Festival by directing Paul Gross as Hamlet (2000) and followed it for Soulpepper Theatre in 2004–05. Ziegler's intimate association with Toronto's Soulpepper company began in its 1998 season, when he was one of a dozen artists who co-founded that company. He directed the company's historic and repeated success, Thornton Wilder's Our Town, initially at the Royal Alexandra Theatre (1999) and subsequently in 2006 (and again in 2007) to open their new space in Toronto's Distillery district. Also for Soulpepper, he directed Present Laughter (2001), King Lear (2006), Mary Stuart (2007) and Ring Round the Moon (2008).

In 2001, Joseph Ziegler added Shakespearean teaching to his resumé, returning to his alma mater, the National Theatre School, to stage As You Like It. He then worked for the George Brown Theatre School (which adjoins Soulpepper), guiding productions like Love's Labours Lost (2001), All's Well That Ends Well (2004) and The Winter's Tale (2007). His teaching includes Shakespearean Scene Studies and a preliminary course in the Art of Direction, lectures which have been included in the curriculum of the University of Guelph.

As an actor at Soulpepper, Ziegler was seen in Dickens's A Christmas Carol (2001) as Scrooge, accompanied by his son Henry playing Tiny Tim in a holiday production that was repeated in 2006; Absolutely Chekhov (which included The Harmfulness of Tobacco) (2002); Waiting for Godot (2004); The Wild Duck (2005); Blithe Spirit; The Time of Your Life (2007, winning the Dora Mavor Moore Award); and, in 2008, as the professor in Uncle Vanya.

Other Toronto performances have included Kingfisher Days at Tarragon (2003), Whistle in the Dark for Company Theatre (2005, remounted in St John's in 2007), and Habeas Corpus (2005) and The Clean House (2008) at Canadian Stage Company. In addition, there have been parts in such TV Movies as Whitewash (2000), The Mathew Sheppard Story (2001), Open House and The Girl (2003), Our Fathers (2004), The Trojan Horse with Paul Gross (CBC 2006), and Amreeka (2008).