Donald Forrest, stalwart of Humboldt County theater, died on Tuesday, Oct. 24, at the age of 73, due to complications related to COVID. According to family members and partner Alison Murray, Forrest, who was vaccinated, tested positive roughly a week ago and was being treated with the drug Paxlovid. A week prior to testing positive, he’d starred in Michael Fields’ The Logger Lear, a Shakespeare adaptation staged at the Logger Bar. The play saw Forrest’s character grappling with the end of life and even planning his own wake.
Originally from the Detroit, Michigan, area, Forrest first came to Humboldt County in the mid 1970s to work with Dell’Arte International founders. His son James says, “He told me he saw the fish in the blue waters in the river and he just wanted to move up here.” Since then, Forrest had been a steady presence on stages around the county while also teaching at DAI.
Murray and Forrest’s ex-wife Nancy Stephenson say a memorial event is being planned to honor him on Dec. 1, along with a wake at the Logger Bar.
Related Stories
This article appears in Sharing their Stories.
