Katharine Clark Reilly, stage actress and producer
deb...@comcast.net
By Brandon Griggs
The Salt Lake Tribune
Obituary
Katharine Clark Reilly
Katharine Clark Reilly, an actress and producer whose Emily Company
staged a handful of well-received plays in Salt Lake City from 1999
through 2001, died Monday of ovarian cancer in Bend, Ore. Her age was
not available.
Reilly became known to Utah theatergoers for portraying strong women
onstage, including poet Emily Dickinson, Ibsen's Hedda Gabler and, in a
cruelly ironic example of life imitating art, the lead in the Utah
premiere of "Wit," the Pulitzer Prize-winning play about a woman dying
of ovarian cancer.
"She was a dreamer, and she had wonderful ideas about what she
wanted for theater in Salt Lake," said actress Anne Cullimore Decker,
who appeared in several Emily Company productions. "Unfortunately, she
wasn't able to make them all happen."
Born in Kansas City, Mo., Reilly graduated from Fontbonne College in
St. Louis, where she and classmate Anne Ewers, who would become CEO of
the Utah Symphony & Opera, became close friends. Reilly began her
theater career on the New York stage and also appeared in TV soap
operas "Another World" and "The Guiding Light."
Later, Reilly moved to Los Angeles, where she managed a number of
successful actors, taught acting and coordinated productions for movie
studios and TV networks. She also produced theater; her 1993
multi-ethnic production of "The Fantastiks" won the L.A. Ovation Award
for Best Musical in a Small Theatre.
During her years as a production coordinator, she helped acquaint
CBS Senior Vice President Robert Gros with Utah's possibilities as a
location for TV shows. Gros later brought "Touched by an Angel" and
"Promised Land" to Utah.
Reilly moved to Salt Lake City in the 1990s and founded the Emily
Company - named
for Emily Dickinson - in an effort to bolster the city's theater scene.
In Utah she also revived her acting career by appearing in many of her
productions, including the role of Dickinson in a one-woman play, "The
Belle of Amherst."
"It's clear that in L.A. there are not many parts for women in their
40s," Reilly told The Salt Lake Tribune in 2000. "I decided to practice
what I preach. I tell my acting students to go to a smaller market
where they can do what they love."
But the Emily Company suffered financial troubles and folded in late
2001 amid complaints that production members were not fully paid for
their work. Stung by the resulting bad publicity, Reilly left Utah for
good in 2003.
"Katharine Clark Reilly was elegant but real, spirited but polite,
strong but delicate," said friend Barbara Bellows-TerraNova, who worked
on several Emily productions. "Like many independent women holding
steady to a vision, she pushed buttons. But the very qualities that
pushed buttons . . . are also the qualities that make good works, good
theater and good friends."
A memorial service is tentatively scheduled for Nov. 13 in downtown
Salt Lake City. Those seeking more information may contact
Bellows-TerraNova via e-mail at bellt...@msn.com.