Al Koslik, who died Tuesday, performs in the 2010 Shaw Festival production of The Cherry Orchard.Al Koslik, who died Tuesday, performs in the 2010 Shaw Festival production of The Cherry Orchard. (David Cooper/Shaw Festival)

Canadian character actor Al Kozlik, who was a member of the Shaw Festival Ensemble for 28 years, has died. He was 76.

He died Tuesday at Greater Niagara General Hospital in Niagara Falls, Ont., after suffering a stroke, the Shaw Festival said Thursday.

Kozlik made his final performance at the Niagara-on-the-Lake theatre festival last season as Firs, the Russian peasant who cannot get used to the idea that he is no longer a serf, in The Cherry Orchard. He officially retired from the stage at the end of the 2010 season.

Kozlik also had TV roles in series such as The Beachcombers, Night Heat and Due South.

Raised in Welland, Ont., Kozlik worked across Canada at Theatre Plus and Tarragon Theatre in Toronto, Theatre New Brunswick in Fredericton and eight seasons at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. He played the lead in The Black Bonspiel of Wullie MacCrimmon at the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton.

He had been working with Vancouver Playhouse when he arrived at the Shaw Festival in 1980 at a time when Christopher Newton was artistic director.

Newton, who worked with Kozlik for 45 years, recalled him as "one of those people who simply loved to be on the stage."

Al Kozlik was a character actor with the Shaw Festival for 28 years.Al Kozlik was a character actor with the Shaw Festival for 28 years. (David Cooper/Shaw Festival)

"Whether playing a small or large part, they were always alive vibrant and fully realized — Al Kozlik was a consummate company member," Newton said in a statement.

With the Shaw, he appeared in S.S. Tenacity, Three Men on a Horse, Getting Married, You Can't Take It With You, The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles, The Petrified Forest, Saint Joan, Man and Superman, The Suicide and many other productions.

He leaves his partner of 41 years, Scott Sunderland.