SWEET LYDIA — 24TH STREET THEATRE, Theater News

Lydia Claire Hannibal White-Spunner

Lydia Claire Hannibal White-Spunner – wife, mother, sister, friend, actor, writer, director, teacher, visual artist – passed away on Saturday July 12, 2025 after a heroic struggle against cancer. Born in New Haven, CT and raised in Los Angeles, Lydia was the beloved daughter of the late Reverend Canon Belfield and Ena Hannibal.

She leaves behind her beloved family; husband Jon, daughters Oonagh and Hannah, brothers Preston (the late, Lasandra), Marc (Connie), and Jeffrey (Theresa) and beloved nieces and nephews Anika (Brian), Matt (Betsy), Alexandra, Ben, Eric (Brynna), Kelly (Blake), her first best friend, Stephanie Quarrels, and her family by marriage; brother-in-law David (Val), and sisters-in-law Katie (Will) and Libby (Jeremy), God-daughter Kristin, and many great nieces and nephews in the United States, England, Ireland and Australia.

Lydia, an actor from the age of five, studied at CAL Arts and The American Conservatory Theatre under the direction of the great Bill Ball. She was a proud member of Actors Equity (AEA) and SAG/AFTRA. Her career spanned film (Ted, Attack of The Killer Tomatoes, Homeboy, Angel of Death), TV (Picket Fences, Dave’s World, Ryan’s Hope), and stage: (The Lion and the Lamb with Tony Award winner John Kani at the Market Theatre in South Africa, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (second production), Raisin, Raisin in the Sun, Miss Julie, For Colored Girls, Romeo and Juliet, Exclusive Circles, Steal Away, The Baka, The Nightingale and the Rose, Doubt, Noises Off, Defying Gravity, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, A Christmas Carol, Finding Our Voices and many others. She worked at Cross Roads Theatre, Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble, The Denver Center, Center Stage Theatre, the McCarter Theatre, 24th Street Theatre, Pacific Resident Theatre, New Hampshire Theatre Project and many others. Lydia was a proud 2023 graduate of the Theatre Program at Bloomsburg University where she appeared in multiple productions, including Remembered, Six Characters in Search of an Author, Everybody, and A Year With Frog and Toad.