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Donald Forrest, a beloved local actor and core member of Dell’Arte International’s original ensemble of performance artists, died at his home on Wednesday due to complications from COVID-19. He was 73 years old.

“He lived a very full life,” Michael Fields, a dear friend and colleague of Forrest’s, told the Outpost in a recent phone interview. “We were roommates in the early years of Dell’Arte and we ended up doing all kinds of stuff together all over the world. He was outgoing and incredibly generous. He was a brilliant actor. I mean, just absolutely brilliant. I’ve worked with some good ones but he was at the top because he just had an innate, uncompromising ability to focus on the work.”

Photo contributed by Fields.

Forrest was born and raised in Michigan. Before making his way to Humboldt County to join Dell’Arte, he performed on Broadway and was involved in “the super alternative, Lower-East Side theater scene” in New York City “where he worked with some of the greats,” Fields said. He was also involved in the San Francisco Mime Troupe, Pickle Family Circus and Make*A*Circus.

“He was part of a lot of the movement,” Fields said. “He brought physical theater to new heights.”

Shortly after moving to Humboldt County in the mid-1970s, Forrest joined Dell’Arte, where he eventually would join Fields and Joan Schirle in sharing artistic director duties for the theater company and school.  

Eventually, he met Nancy Stephenson and the couple had a son, James Forrest. He also became a stepfather to Stephenson’s daughter, Amelia Rudnicki.

“When his son was in grade school, [Forrest] started a theater program at Blue Lake School because he had always wanted to do something with kids,” Fields said. “I would say that changed Dell’Arte’s relationship with the town. He got the eighth graders to do a play every year that he would direct and it was put on in the Carlo Theatre, you know, a full production with lights, sets, sound, everything. They felt like they were on Broadway. … A lot of those kids remember Donald to this day because of those plays.”

Forrest, along with several other locals, had a cameo in the 1995 thriller Outbreak, in which he played Mark Mauldin, according to IMDB.

Most recently, Forrest took on the title role of Terry “King” Lear in “The Logger Lear,” an original production written by Fields loosely based on “King Lear” by William Shakespeare. The play, which ran at the Logger Bar in Blue Lake just a couple of weeks ago, explored the idea of legacy and what we leave behind when we die.

“There’s a line in there about regret, and the way you lift yourself out of regret is to do the things you love,” Fields said. “And for him, acting was the love of his life. We had talked about him doing this for a while and, as we get older, we start thinking of different things – different things become important. … It’s like the last role, and it’s about the end of life.”

Fields will host a wake for Forrest at the Logger Bar in the next month or so, likely in early December.