Actor and Award Winning Playwright
Welcome to my playwrighting section. I am an actor/director/playwright living in rural Southwestern Ontario. I have been performing since 2005 and writing plays since 2007. An active part of the London and area community and alternative theatre scene, here is a list of my favourite roles performed.
My first one-act play “Naked in the Kitchen” received acclaim in London and across Canada in 2007, and was then developed into a full length play. “Naked” had its World Premiere with the Bloomington Playwrights Project in Bloomington, Indiana in November, 2009, as the winner of the 2009 Reva Shiner Playwrighting Competition (more details about productions of NITK here) .
I have written dozens of short pieces, and I am developing some of them into longer works. For a list of my professional and selected amateur productions, click here.
People have been a vital part of my growth as a playwright. I am eternally grateful to the people and organizations who have provided dramaturgy support which has assisted in the development of my work (Grand Theatre, London-One-Act-Festival, Ron Cameron-Lewis, Dave Carley, Fanshawe College, Jeff Culbert).
Why write?
My rapid baptism into the theatre community in 2005 awakened a long-held but deeply dormant desire to write. I mean really write. My desires, I suppose, had been for years minimally satisfied by being creative in reports and emails and silly songs at relatives’ weddings, but when I sat down years ago to write a parenting book…nada. So…the urges were successfully suppressed again. Writing is one of those things that people often think they can do, but actually sitting down to do it leads to the realization that it can be excruciatingly frustrating. To name the fear…what if nothing comes out? Worse yet, what if what does come out is…shite…garbage? For me, writing is a deeply personal process and to reveal my writing to an individual or the world was at first a terrifying thing. But greater than all the fear was the desire to create…the desire to take that dialogue in my head and record it so it could grow and become…something.
So from 2007 to 2009 I wrote…a lot.
My plays are about relationships. I am fascinated by how people bounce off each other and struggle to get their needs met in families and partnerships. I write character-driven plays that explore common relationship issues and themes that audiences can connect with. I love to mix heavy drama and pathos with the biting humour that is instinctually present in the thick of its midst. I have also written strictly comedy, which is always a hoot.
I am a true believer in play development. I share my writing easily and love to encourage other writers. I applaud communities that provide opportunities for emerging and established playwrights to explore and showcase their work. See my links section for some of my favourite opportunities and connections.