Bolt, Carol, 1941-2000 : Carol Bolt was born Carol Johnson in Winnipeg, Manitoba, on 25 August 1941. She grew up in Manitoba, Ontario and British Columbia, and graduated from the University of British Columbia in 1961. After living in England and Israel, she settled in Montreal, where she began writing plays for children and co-founded a children's theatre. Her first play, I Wish, was produced in 1966 and was published in Upstage and Down (Macmillan 1968). Bolt moved to Toronto, where she married the actor-writer David Bolt in 1969 and quickly established a career as a writer for the stage. Her early writing was influenced by an interest in Canadian history and mythology and a desire for social justice. Her first Toronto play, Daganawida, portraying the French and Indians at Quebec, was produced by Toronto Workshop Productions in 1970. Her next play, Buffalo Jump, about the on-to-Ottawa trek of British Columbia strikers during the Great Depression, was produced in Regina in 1971 and at Toronto's Theatre Passe Muraille in 1972. Gabe, which intermingled modern and historical Métis characters, was produced at Toronto Free Theatre in 1973. Bolt was a feminist writer who explored the themes of women and power, and violence, in her plays Red Emma - Queen of the Anarchists 1974, Shelter 1975, One Night Stand 1977, and Famous 1997. Her comedy Escape Entertainment, produced by Tarragon Theatre in 1981, made fun of the entertainment business. She wrote many plays for children, including My Best Friend is Twelve Feet High and Cyclone Jack (about the celebrated Six Nations long-distance runner Tom Longboat) 1972, Tangleflags and Maurice 1973, Ice Time (about Justine Bailey's fight to play hockey in a boys' league) 1986, Real Life Television 1991, and Fatso 1994.
Red Emma and One Night Stand were both filmed for CBC Television by the Canadian filmmaker Allan King. Cyclone Jack was also filmed for television. Two of Bolt's scripts, West on Queen Street and Vietnaming (co-written with Edwina Follows) were made into short dramatic films at the Canadian Film Centre 1989. She was a regular scriptwriter for the children's television programmes Fraggle Rock and Blizzard Island. She wrote radio plays for the CBC, including Silent Pictures (about Mary Pickford) 1983, Yellow Ribbons 1987, Ninja 1989, and Campaneras (about Canadian foreign aid worker Karen Ridd in El Salvador) 1993. In 1995, Red Emma was made into an opera commissioned by the Canadian Opera Company, with a libretto by Bolt.
Bolt was active in organizations representing the interests of Canadian writers. She was a founding member of the Playwrights Co-op (later Playwrights Union of Canada) in 1972 and served on its executive. In 1987-1988, she served on the Public Lending Rights Commission. She worked as a dramaturge for Toronto Free Theatre in 1973 and for the Labrador Arts Festival, editing a collection of plays commemorating its 25th anniversary, Who Asked Us Anyway? (1998). She was a writer-in-residence at the University of Toronto 1977-1978, the Australian Playwrights Colony 1980, Banff School of Fine Art 1983, and National Theatre School 1997. She taught at the Young People's Theatre Summer School 1983-1997, and at Concordia University 1992-1994. She attended Norman Jewison's Centre for Advanced Film Studies in 1989.
Carol Bolt died in Toronto on 28 November 2000, leaving her husband, David, and a son, Alex.
