1926 - 1959
1926
Born May 13th in Findlater, Saskatchewan, to Reverend George Coghill and Dorothy (Pollard) Coghill.
Joy as a Baby
1938
Due to the possibilities of war, was evacuated from Glasgow to Troon.
1939
Reverend George Coghill dies.
1940
Evacuated with mother and cousins from Scotland to Canada. Attends Kitsilano High School and begins elocution lessons with Anne Mossman.
1941
Appears with the Vancouver Little Theatre in Bunty Pulls the Strings by Graham Moffat - opening night is on the same day the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. The play was the 100th production of the Vancouver Little Theatre.
Bunty Pulls the Strings
1943
High School Drama Festival - acts and directs in Room in the Tower for which Coghill wins a scholarship to the University of British Columbia’s (UBC’s) Summer School of the Theatre.
Begins teaching elocution lessons in Vancouver with A.T.C.L. certificate from Trinity College in London, England.
1944
Wins Best Actress in the Vancouver High School Drama Festival, playing the Dowager Queen in Dark Betrothal by Thomas Baden Morris.
Graduates from Kitsilano high school.
1945
Biondello in Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare, with the UBC Players Club, Vancouver.
1946
Has the title role in John Van Druten’s
I Remember Mama with UBC's Summer School of the Theatre.
I Remember Mama
Member of the Theta Chapter of Phrateres at UBC.
Membership in the literary and Scientific Honorary Society of the Alma Mater Society of UBC for services to the cultural activities of the student body.
1947
Housekeeper in Donna Rosita with UBC Summer School of the Theatre (directed by Dorothy Somerset).
Graduates with a Bachelor or Arts degree from the University of British Columbia.
1948
Wins a Dominion Drama Festival (DDM) acting award playing Mrs. Phelps in The Silver Cord by Sydney Howard. It was staged by the Vancouver Little Theatre and presented in Vancouver for a week in February 1948 before being presented in Ottawa at the DDM in the spring of 1948.
Directed Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s School for Scandal with UBC's Players’ Club.
Leaves Vancouver for the Goodman Theatre in Chicago to study for a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Art Institute of Chicago.
Directs George Bernard Shaw’s Dark Lady of the Sonnets, Goodman Theatre in Chicago.
Plays the mother in This Happy Breed by Noel Coward, Goodman Theatre in Chicago.
School for Scandal program cover
1949
Plays another mother in Gerald Savory’s George and Margaret, Goodman Theatre in Chicago.
Title role,
Candida by George Bernard Shaw, Goodman Theatre in Chicago. Director: David Itkin.
Joy with Bob Borlik at Goodman Theatre
1950
Directs King Midas and the Golden Touch, by Charlotte Chorpenning, Goodman's Children's Theatre in Chicago.
Adapts and directs Antigone, by Jean Anouilh, Goodman Theatre Studio in Chicago.
Receives her Master of Fine Arts degree from Goodman Theatre at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Joins the International Players in Kingston, Ontario for the summer. She directs and acts, doing thirteen plays in thirteen weeks.
1951
Begins teaching drama at UBC (1951 -1952 and 1954 - 1966).
Directs Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing with the UBC Players’ Club.
Actress and director at Tenthouse Theatre in Rhinelander, Wisconsin.
Actress and Associate Artistic Director with Sydney Risk’s Everyman Theatre in Vancouver (1951 - 1953).
Plays Mrs. Alving in Ibsen’s Ghosts, Everyman Theatre in Vancouver. Director: Sydney Risk.
Plays in Mama in House of Regrets, by Peter Ustinov, Everyman Theatre. Director: Sydney Risk.
Directs Will the Mail Train Run Tonight? by Morland Carey, Everyman Theatre.
Joy with Ron Wilson in Ghosts
1951-52
Directs Little Red Riding Hood and Rumplestiltskin for Everyman Theatre.
1952
Directs The Flies, by Jean-Paul Sartre for Everyman Theatre.
Directs Much Ado about Nothing by William Shakespeare for the UBC’s Players’ Club.
Begins teaching at Goodman Theatre and De Paul University in Chicago (1952 - 1953).
Directs The Emperor’s New Clothes by Charlotte Chorpenning, Goodman Children's Theatre, Chicago.
Directs Mrs. Henry Wood’s East Lynne, Goodman Studio Theatre.
1953
Directs Noel Coward’s Tonight at Eight-Thirty (Theoni V. Aldridge on piano), Goodman Theatre.
Directs Huckleberry Finn by Charlotte Chorpenning, Goodman Children's Theatre.
Directs The Swan by Ferenc Molnar, De Paul University.
Founds Holiday Theatre, the first professional children’s theatre in Canada, with Myra Benson
Becomes artistic director of the theatre (1953 - 1966).
1954
Directs Chekhov’s The Seagull, UBC’s Frederic Wood Theatre, Vancouver.
Actress and director for Tenthouse Theatre in Rhinelander, Wisconsin. Directs A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, and performs in The Heiress by Augustus and Ruth Goetz.
Artistic director of Frederic Wood Theatre (1954 - 1955) at UBC in Vancouver.
1955
GM Theatre, live television on CBC: Never Say No with William Shatner, Toby Robins and William Needles. Director: Robert Allen.
Marries radio producer John (Jack) Thorne.
1956
Birth of first child, Debra Dorothy.
1957
Directs Teahouse of the August Moon by John Patrick, Vancouver Little Theatre.
1958
Birth of second child, Gordon Alexander.
1959
Alice in Anyone for Alice, CBC Television “Studio Pacific”.