Jackie Richardson has just been called in to play Sister Hubert for the last three-week run of the play Nunsense. Like most actors in Canada, Richardson juggles theater and television in order to make a decent living.

Richardson started her performing career as a singer, but after a grueling European tour in the early ’70s, she decided to try her hand at amateur theater. Three years later the boom hit in Toronto and she scored a lot of television work. That was the early ’80s and work has had its peaks and valleys since. But Richardson is confident the tide is turning for Canadian actors.

A past Gemini Award winner for her performance in the short drama Gracie, Richardson says she enjoyed her role as Atlas’ Aunt Ellen in the series Catwalk. Unfortunately, because Catwalk producers changed the musical focus of the band members in the series this season, Atlas was dropped, and by extension, so was Richardson. ‘They didn’t want hip hop or rap,’ she says.

Richardson played a lead role, Jessie, in Sing Out Freedom Train, a musical about the underground railroad, which aired Feb. 6 on Global, and is hoping to do a play about Mahalia Jackson, produced by Toronto’s Snap Shot Productions. KM