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Playwrighting
I studied Playwrighting
at the Banff School of Fine Arts (1982) and the University of Alberta
(1984- 1986). I've been telling stories since 1980. I write so that
I always have a project to work on. I can't always wait for others to
hire me; sometimes I have to make my own work.
Most
recently my black comedy, The Happy Anarchist, was produced by the Happy
Anarchist Equity Cooperative, April 2003 in Vancouver, BC. The
play was set in a coffee house in Amsterdam and we did a site-specific
staging in the New Amsterdam Café.
April
2000 in Edmonton, Alberta, Baffin Island Productions Cooperative
staged my multi-media rock opera, The Illumination of Marshall McLuhan.
This beast of a play had a cast of 15, 12 in the crew, 3 designers,
a five piece rock band and was nominated for two Sterling Theatre awards
in Edmonton. Our Dramaturge on the project, Robin Whittaker, is in the
process of writing an article for a Canadian theatre Journal. Stay tuned-the
beast lives on!
From 1987-2001
I worked with Lynette Maurice and Cindi Zuby creating interactive audience
participation shows which played at The Edmonton Street Performer's
Festival and the Banff Springs Hotel. My favourite interactive performances
include: The Ugly Duckling (2001), Why are There Rainbows? (1999)
and The Melancholy Queen (1998- 7). I have also created site-specific
collective-process interactive shows for Fringe Theatre Adventure's
Kids Fringe.
I wrote specific
works for the talents in my band, Big Inc. Beside writing lyrics for
over 50 songs, (8 of which were recorded) I also wrote plays and gig
scenarios for the musicians to perform. Favourite Big Inc. productions
include: Elvis in Wonderland (1993) and the Big Inc. Revival
Hour (1992), which featured a dozen hard-rocking original songs,
The Pope with Nuns and Priests on guitar and drums and a sword fight
between the Pope and the Devil for the souls of the assembled multitude.
My current writing
projects include: A Spring Break show for the Burr Theatre in 2004.
This project will be a collaboration with a black light physical theatre
artist- more as the project comes to fruition. Robin and I will still
keep McLuhan alive and now that I'm living in a filmmaking centre I'm
going to turn my hand to writing for the recorded media.
My current writing
projects include screen plays, because I live in a film production city,
and poetry for my sweetie.