News

To our RLT family,

It is with heavy hearts that we must share the news with you that Linda O’Day Young has passed away.

As most of you know, Linda was an incredible artist and mentor and served RLT for more than 13 years. Every single person who worked with Linda or was taught by her will feel the ache of this loss. Linda was a force. A warrior. And one of the strongest people we have ever known.

Every single person who was in one of her casts or classes found her to be a source of inspiration. She cared deeply about each actor and student, and her belief that they could accomplish anything they wanted if they were passionate enough made them believe it too. And those she inspired have gone on to accomplish great things and have always carried with them their lessons from Linda – passion, hard work, and a fighting spirit.

While this news is heartbreaking for all of us who knew and worked with her, we are so thankful for all that Linda left behind – a body of work that made an incredible impact and a community of people who will carry her goodness of spirit and her bounty of love forward.

When we think of Linda, we think of this quote by Thornton Wilder: “I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.”

Thank you, Linda for teaching us what it means to be human.

We will have an informal gathering on the stage of the Sutton Theatre on Tuesday the 26th at 6:00pm for Linda. She always began her rehearsals with a ‘check-in’ and that’s what we will do in her honor. As we learn details about other arrangements from her family, we will be in touch.

View photos of Linda during her time at RLT on our Flickr account.