Theatre
For many years she was a regular in pantomime at the Kings' Theatre, Glasgow, starring alongside Gerard Kelly in performances such as Aladdin, Mother Goose and Sleeping Beauty. More recently, she has appeared in her own seasonal show, 12 Nights of Christmas at the Oran Mor, Glasgow.
She has also toured Scotland in straight plays, notably with Andy Gray, in The Woman Who Cooked Her Husband, Two and The Rise and Fall of Little Voice. Other notable Scottish theatre roles include Guys and Dolls and Shirley Valentine. She has also performed in new works at the Tron Theatre, Glasgow and the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh. She also toured Scotland alongside Andy Gray in The Rise and Fall of Little Voice in 2007.
In September 2008 she began touring the UK in a stage version of the hit British film Calendar Girls, along with Lynda Bellingham, Patricia Hodge, Siân Phillips, Gaynor Faye and Brigit Forsyth. The show opened in London's West End at the Noël Coward Theatre in April 2009. The original cast left the show at the end of July 2009 but Smith returned in a different role as part of a national tour in 2010.
During Christmas 2009, Smith played Fairy Godmother in the pantomime Cinderella in Aberdeen and returned there over Christmas 2010 to play the Evil Queen Carabosse in Sleeping Beauty. For a third year in Aberdeen she returned for the pantomime playing the Fairy Flora McDonald in Jack and the Beanstalk and she returned for a fourth year in 2012 in Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs as Queen Sadista.
From March 2012, she played Scottish singer Susan Boyle in the musical I Dreamed a Dream, based on Boyle's life and rise to fame. There are plans to take the show to Australia in 2013.
Read more about this topic: Elaine C. Smith
Famous quotes containing the word theatre:
“To save the theatre, the theatre must be destroyed, the actors and actresses must all die of the plague. They poison the air, they make art impossible. It is not drama that they play, but pieces for the theatre. We should return to the Greeks, play in the open air; the drama dies of stalls and boxes and evening dress, and people who come to digest their dinner.”
—Eleonora Duse (1859–1924)
“... the theatre demanded of its members stamina, good digestion, the ability to adjust, and a strong sense of humor. There was no discomfort an actor didn’t learn to endure. To survive, we had to be horses and we were.”
—Helen Hayes (1900–1993)
“The theatre is the best way of showing the gap between what is said and what is seen to be done, and that is why, ragged and gap-toothed as it is, it has still a far healthier potential than some poorer, abandoned arts.”
—David Hare (b. 1947)