Ray Christenson, 1931-2025

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

With the passing of Ray Christenson this month, at 93, Edmonton theatre and its community of artists have lost someone essential to what they do, how they create — and, especially, why.

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The live theatre isn’t alive, after all, without an audience. And Ray (as he was known to everyone, of every age, in his expansive circle of friends and acquaintances), was the ideal audience, the theatre lover every artist loves (or should): curious, open-minded, receptive to new experiences on any evening, eager to discuss.

If Ray asked you what you thought of a production, and the two of you disagreed, he was fine with that. If you were resistant to a show (there’s diplomatic reviewer talk for you), and the word “excruciating” came unbidden to your critic’s brain, Ray was there to remind you of a bright performance in a small role, perhaps, or something special about a scene, or a telling line of dialogue.

Chatting to Ray at intermission or post-show, or running into him at the Fringe, was always a reminder that for the audience there’s invariably something positive, discussable, challenging, in every creative experiment, no matter how imperfectly realized or out-and-out screwed-up onstage. What a valuable lesson that is for any theatre reviewer.

No matter how extreme the point of view in a show, how harsh and ugly, or confrontational, anti-social, or self-indulgent for that matter, Ray was remarkably non-judgmental and open-hearted. He remained outward-looking, optimistic, ready to be delighted, to listen and entertain other points of view, to see the world through other eyes.

He had tickets and subscriptions to a wild assortment of theatre companies in town, big-budget theatre, indies, student shows, church basement productions…. Until he was physically unable to venture forth, he happily sat through every kind of Edmonton theatre, including of course Catalyst productions created by his son Jonathan Christenson, the company’s artistic director. And then when his eyesight began to fail, Ray bore the affliction with patience and exemplary fortitude; as his vision dimmed, his impish smile did not. Ray’s final exit came “just shy of his 94th birthday,” says the Park Memorial obituary. It will be the only time that “shy” and “Ray” ever appear in the same sentence.    

Ray wasn’t an artist; he was a champion of artists who wasn’t a pushover.  And he transcended, effortlessly at every age, the stereotypes of chronology and career. He was a pastor and university chaplain who was pretty much unshock-able; an arts lover who, like his great friend director/actor Jim DeFelice, got a big kick out of hockey and back in the day Trappers baseball. You’d run into the two of them in Strathcona cafes or on Whyte, in intense, incomprehensible pre-game confabs about sports stats.

We track artists; we follow their careers, their creative initiatives. But how often do we acknowledge the contribution to theatre of audiences, who are inspired to connect, ready to buy into a whole variety of mind- and heart-expanding experiences? In rooms they share with a community of other people, in house seats and onstage? It’s the moment to appreciate a quintessential appreciator.

Every encounter with Ray was not only fun, but made me understand that rapport better. And the Ray-less theatre world seems diminished.