William Grant Glassco ’57

Bill, also known as "Glassy," died Sept. 13, 2004, of throat cancer.

Even before Princeton, Bill was interested in theater and is remembered for the style and humor he contributed to three years of Triangle shows. Throughout his life he played piano and sang American show tunes and other music for his friends. In his last years, his own voice reduced, he recorded songs with his daughter, Briony, and friend Adam Broughton singing.

After Princeton, Bill studied at Oxford, taught English at the University of Toronto (from which he was later awarded an honorary doctor of letters degree), and studied drama at New York University.

He was a theater director who championed plays and players that spoke in a Canadian voice to Canadian audiences. In 1971 Bill founded Toronto's Tarragon Theatre and served for more that a decade as its artistic director. He later helped merge two theater companies into CanStage, his country's principal contemporary theater.

In 1999, Bill founded the Montreal Young Company. He encouraged and nurtured connections between the English and French theater traditions. In later years, Bill lived in Quebec City, Montreal, and in a family summer home in Tadoussac, where he offered friendship and hospitality to Princeton classmates and spouses.

Bill is survived by Briony, sons Rufus and Danny, and five grandchildren, to whom the class offers support and sympathy.

The Class of 1957