Pamela RabeAM (born Pamela June Koropatnick; 30 April 1959) is a Canadian and Australian actress and theatre director. A graduate of the Playhouse Acting School in Vancouver, Rabe is best known for her appearances in the Australian films Sirens, Cosi and Paradise Road, and for starring as Joan Ferguson in the television drama series Wentworth.
Rabe was born in Oakville, Ontario, Canada in 1959. The seventh of eight children, she graduated from the Playhouse Acting School in Vancouver.[1] Rabe relocated to Australia in 1983 with Australian director, Roger Hodgman.[2] They were married in 1984.[citation needed]
Career
Theatre
Rabe is a prolific contributor to theatrical life in her adopted country in acting and directing, across a wide range of genres - musicals, comedy and drama. She is a long-standing collaborator with the Sydney Theatre Company and the Melbourne Theatre Company. Rabe was once described by Melbourne theatre critic Alison Croggon as having the sort of presence that "makes shy people swallow hard and lesser mortals involuntarily bow".[3]
Rabe turned her hand to theatre directing in 2009, and has directed several high-profile plays for Australian theatre companies, including the Australian premiere of In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play), and Elling for the Melbourne Theatre Company. Rabe was nominated for a Green Room Award for best direction on both occasions. In 2012, Rabe was invited to be a member of the guest triumvirate who programmed the Melbourne Theatre Company season for that year.[10][11]
Rabe would have returned to theatre in 2020 for the play Monster,[12] but the performances were put on hold due to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions; it was finally announced that Monster would go ahead in 2022 but Rabe would withdraw from the play and the role went to Alison Whyte.
Rabe also performed a vocal performance of Shakespeare works in 2021 with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.[citation needed]
In 2023 Rabe joined the international tour of The Confessions.[13]
On 11 September 2024, Rabe was announced as part of the Melbourne Theatre Co season to appear in Rebecca.[14] On 1 November 2024, it was announced that Rabe would join Bert La Bonté for the 2025 Black Swan Theatre Company production of August: Osage County.[15] On 20 January 2025, it was announced that Rabe and Tamsin Carroll won the award for Best Performance in a Leading Role for August: Osage County.[16]
Rabe's Australian television credits include an early guest role on the soap opera A Country Practice, recurring roles on the family series Ocean Girl and The Secret Life of Us, and a lead role in the short lived series Mercury.
In September 2013, it was announced that Rabe would join the cast of the Australian prison drama series Wentworth, a reimagining of the classic Network Ten soap opera Prisoner. She joined Wentworth in Season Two as sadistic prison governor Joan "The Freak" Ferguson, a role originally played by Maggie Kirkpatrick in Prisoner. Her character was initially killed off at the end of the fifth season, when she is buried alive by Will Jackson (Robbie Magasiva), and she made her then final appearances in two episodes of the sixth season as a figment of Will's imagination. The seventh season of Wentworth was intended to be the last, however, it was once again renewed and the ending of season seven was rewritten to include Joan, who is revealed to be alive. Rabe reprised her role for the 20-episode eighth and final season, which aired its first part in 2020, while the final part was aired in 2021. Rabe has been nominated for multiple awards for her performance, winning the 2015 AACTA Award for Best Lead Actress in a Television Drama and the 2018 Logie Award for Most Outstanding Actress.
In 2017, Rabe played the role of Maude in the six-part TV series Fucking Adelaide, which premiered at the Adelaide Film Festival in October 2017.[18][19]
In 2018 Rabe would guest appear in Wentworth in Series 6, film mini series The Hunting and continue performing in theatre.
In 2022 Rabe joined the cast of Amazon comedy series Deadloch. Rabe would also join the first series of ABC drama Bay of Fires.[20][21]
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