Lorena Gale

Gale died following a battle with throat cancer on June 21, 2009 at age 51. Her body was cremated.

Gale was born in Montreal, Quebec. She studied at Concordia University and the National Theatre School and completed a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver in 2005.

She appeared in such movies as The Hotel New Hampshire, Another Cinderella Story, Ernest Goes to School, Fantastic Four, Traitor, The Chronicles of Riddick, The Mermaid Chair, and The Exorcism of Emily Rose. She has guest starred on programs such as The X-Files, Stargate SG-1, Smallville and Kingdom Hospital. Until August 2005, she starred as Priestess Elosha on the SciFi Channel television program Battlestar Galactica.

Her play, Angélique, the story of executed slave Marie-Joseph Angelique, was the winner of the 1995 duMaurier National Playwriting Competition in Canada. Her writing explores the nature of being black and mixed race and belonging in Canada.

After moving to Vancouver in 1988, Lorena won a 1991 Jessie Richardson Award for best supporting actress as Normal Jean in The Colored Museum (1990) .

In 1985 she became the artistic director of Montréal's Black Theatre Workshop. She then studied playwriting at the Playwrights' Workshop Montréal.

Her performances on stage for Lorraine Hansberry's Raisin in the Sun and Joseph A. Walker's River Niger won her the Montreal Gazette Theatre Critics Award for Outstanding Performance in 1981.

Lorena Gale (May 9, 1958 – June 21, 2009) was a Canadian actress, playwright and theatre director. She was active onstage and in films and television since the 1980s. She also authored two award-winning plays, Angélique and Je me souviens.