Paul Rainville

Born and raised in Ottawa, Paul spent his formative years along the mighty Rideau River in East End Overbrook. His work over four decades in Canadian theatre has taken him from the East Coast to the West and many places in between. He has played a range of characters from Prospero, to Shylock and King Lear, to a Dragon named Dudley, and an opera-singing worm named Signor Uno Verissimo. Here in Ottawa, he has been fortunate enough over the years to work many times at the NAC: he got to join the marvellous 2015/16 English Theatre Ensemble and play Benoit in The December Man, Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night, and Dick Cheney in Stuff Happens; he has also appeared in NAC productions of The “Vaudevilles” of Chekhov, Hamlet, The Winter’s Tale, The Secret Garden, 7 Stories, Cyrano, Happy Days, The Dreamland, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, and with the NAC Orchestra in Beethoven Lives Upstairs.

Across town at the Great Canadian Theatre Company he has played in The Children’s Republic, The Drawer Boy, Heroes, Plan B, No Great Mischief, Better Living, The Collected Works of Billy The Kid, Our Country’s Good and Relative Good, to name a few. Paul recently played at Montreal’s Centaur Theatre in the part of Mr. Pendleton in the acclaimed production of Choir Boy. In December 2021, Paul will appear in Daisy over at GCTC as they resume the Covid-interrupted production of Sean Devine’s play about the infamous TV advertisement that helped Lyndon Johnson wrest the 1964 election from Barry Goldwater.

Back in 2019 Paul released a collection of original songs that is available on CD and various online platforms.