December 20, 2017 The Skanner Page 7
Arts & Entertainment
Oregon Shakespeare Festival Actor G. Valmont Thomas Dies
2018 season, which would have been Thomas’ 15th, will be dedicated to his memory
Oregon Shakespeare
Festival
ASHLAND, ORE. —
Gregory Valmont Thom-
as, a 14-season member
of the Oregon Shake-
speare Festival acting
company, passed away
early on Monday, Dec.
18, in Ashland after a
battle with cancer. OSF’s
2018 season will be ded-
icated to the man who
worked under the name
G. Valmont Thomas but
was better known to his
friends and colleagues as
G. Val.
“G. Val passed away
Gregory Valmont Thomas
surrounded by many of
the family and friends
who have taken such
good care of him during
his illness,” said OSF Ar-
tistic Director Bill Rauch.
“I am filled with gratitude
to have known this man
so great of artistry and
so generous of spirit. In-
deed, one of his last acts
was to make a donation
to OSF’s Rex Rabold Fund
in order to ‘pay back’ the
company for the care and
help he received from so
many.”
Besides being the only
OSF actor to have played
Sir John Falstaff in all
three Shakespeare plays
that feature that charac-
ter, his versatility was
evident by the breadth of
his roles in both classic
and new work.
Thomas performed ap-
proximately 60 roles in
his 14 years at OSF. His
first season at the Festi-
val was in 1998, when he
played Francis Flute in
A Midsummer Night’s
Dream and Snake in The
School for Scandal. He
remained a member of
the OSF acting company
every season through
2012, appearing in a
wide range of roles in-
cluding Simonides in
Pericles (1999), Mistress
Quickly in Henry IV,
Part Two (1999), Feste
in Twelfth Night (2000),
Macbeth in Macbeth
(2002), Boy Willie in
The Piano Lesson (2003),
Lincoln in Topdog/Un-
derdog (2004), Falstaff
in The Merry Wives of
Windsor (2006), Solly
Two Kings in Gem of the
Ocean (2007), Gabriel in
Fences (2008), Soothsay-
er in Antony and Cleo-
patra (2003), Melchior
in On the Razzle (2007)
and Blue in Party People
(2012). He also served as
assistant director of The
African Company Pres-
ents Richard III (2011).
In 2017, Thomas re-
turned to the OSF compa-
ny to play Falstaff in Hen-
ry IV, Parts One and Two.
In October of this year,
the Ashland Daily Tid-
ings reported on Thom-
as’ stage IV prostate
cancer battle and shared
news of a crowd-fund-
ing campaign set up by
friends that ultimately
raised over $53,000 for
his medical care.
“They knew the risks,”
Thomas, who was diag-
nosed in 2013, said of OSF
in the article. “With che-
mo, my hair would fall off
during performances.
See THOMAS on page 9
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