Joanna Foster

Joanna Foster is a British actress active in theatre, television, and film since 1978.

Career

Education and stage work

Foster is the daughter of the actor Barry Foster and the sister of the actress Miranda Foster. She was trained at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. While a student she performed the role of Celia in the Central School's January 1978 production of Christopher Hampton's The Philanthropist. She made her professional stage debut at the Mercury Theatre, Colchester in September 1978 as Valeria in Aphra Behn's 1677 play The Rover. It was the first un-censored staging of the play since the 1750s; restoring much of the original bawdy language.

In 1979 Foster starred in the world premiere of Andrew Davies's Diary of A Desperate Woman at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry, England. That same year she became a resident actress at the New Wolsey Theatre; making her debut with the company in a production of Carlo Goldoni's 1746 play The Servant of Two Masters. Other roles she performed at that theatre included Diana in the world premiere of Anthony Burgess's The Eve of Saint Venus (1979), Gerda in a stage adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen (1980), and Hermia in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (1980).

In 1980 Foster portrayed the role of Cheppi / Ilona in János Nyiri's If Winter Comes at the Leicester Haymarket Theatre. She had a critical triumph as Nora Helmer in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House at The Dukes, Lancaster in 1981; a production which used a new contemporary English language translation by playwright Pam Gems. The Stage theatre critic Robin Duke wrote "Given the contemporary nature of the new translation, the play compounds its earlier feminist ideals and clenches a new iron fist in a velvet glove. Much of the thanks goes to a remarkable performance by Joanna Foster as the trapped Nora Helmer. She positively trembles with nervous energy, hands desperately seeking somewhere to rest, eyes too busy to settle." She returned to the The Dukes the following season as Laura Wingfield in Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie, and Juliet in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliette.

Television and film

Foster's first television role was as Theresa in the 1979 BBC television drama Testament of Youth. The following year she portrayed Clara Brewer in the ITV television series Flickers. In 1982 she starred as Fran in "The Visitors"; a supernatural thriller made for British horror anthology series West Country Tales.

Between 1992 and 1993 Foster played staff general manager Kate Miller in the hospital drama Casualty. She is the fourth actress to portray the role of Susan Barlow in Coronation Street, after Katie Heannau, Wendy Jane Walker and Suzy Paterson. She played the character for one month from January 2001 until the character's death in a car crash in February 2001. She also starred in the Five soap Family Affairs between 2002 and 2003, where she played Ginny Davenport. She also played the role of Miriam, the sister of Moses, in the History Channel's The Bible.

External links

• Joanna Foster on IMDb

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