Brian Drader

Last updated
Brian Drader
Born1960
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Occupationplaywright
NationalityCanadian
Period1980s-present
Notable worksProk, The Fruit Machine

Brian Drader (born 1960) is a Canadian stage actor and playwright. [1] He is best known for his plays Prok, about Alfred Kinsey and Clara McMillen, [1] and The Fruit Machine, about the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's controversial 1960s fruit machine project to identify homosexual people. [2]

Contents

Originally from Winnipeg, Manitoba, he is currently based in Montreal, Quebec, where he teaches playwriting at the National Theatre School of Canada. [3]

His other plays have included Easter Eggs, [4] TuckTuck, [5] The Author's Voice, [6] The Norbals, [7] Mind of the Iguana, [8] Liar, [9] To Be Frank, [10] Everybody's Business and Curtsy.

Awards

He won the Herman Voaden Playwriting Competition in 1997 for The Norbals. [7]

Prok was a shortlisted nominee for the Governor General's Award for English-language drama at the 2003 Governor General's Awards, [11] and won the Lambda Literary Award for drama at the 16th Lambda Literary Awards. [12]

Related Research Articles

Sharon Pollock, was a Canadian playwright, actor, and director. She was Artistic Director of Theatre Calgary (1984), Theatre New Brunswick (1988–1990) and Performance Kitchen & The Garry Theatre, the latter which she herself founded in 1992. In 2007, she was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Pollock was one of Canada's most notable playwrights, and was a major part of the development of what is known today as Canadian Theatre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Theatre of Canada</span> Canadas contemporary theatre

Canada's contemporary theatre reflects a rich diversity of regional and cultural identities. Since the late 1960s, there has been a concerted effort to develop the voice of the 'Canadian playwright', which is reflected in the nationally focused programming of many of the country's theatres. Within this 'Canadian voice' are a plurality of perspectives - that of the First Nations, new immigrants, French Canadians, sexual minorities, etc. - and a multitude of theatre companies have been created to specifically service and support these voices.

The Governor General's Award for English-language drama honours excellence in Canadian English-language playwriting. The award was created in 1981 when the Governor General's Award for English-language poetry or drama was divided.

Michael Healey is a Canadian playwright and actor. He graduated from the acting programme at Toronto's Ryerson Theatre School in 1985. His acting credits include the plays of Jason Sherman and George F. Walker.

Jonathan Lachlan Stewart is a Canadian actor and playwright.

Caleb Lewis is an Australian playwright and game designer. He is known for his play Dogfall, first produced in 2007 in Adelaide, South Australia.

Sina Queyras is a Canadian writer. To date they have published seven collections of poetry, a novel and an essay collection.

Gwen Pharis Ringwood was a Canadian playwright.

Charlotte Corbeil-Coleman is a Canadian playwright, screenwriter and actress. Her 2008 play, Scratch, was nominated for the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play in 2009, was a prizewinner in the Herman Voaden Playwriting Competition, and was nominated for the Governor General's Award for English-language drama at the 2010 Governor General's Awards.

<i>She Has a Name</i> 2009 Andrew Kooman play about human trafficking

She Has a Name is a play about human trafficking written by Andrew Kooman in 2009 as a single act and expanded to full length in 2010. It is about the trafficking of children into sexual slavery and was inspired by the deaths of 54 people in the Ranong human-trafficking incident. Kooman had previously published literature, but this was his first full-length play. The stage premiere of She Has a Name was directed by Stephen Waldschmidt in Calgary, Alberta in February 2011. From May to October 2012, She Has a Name toured across Canada. In conjunction with the tour, A Better World raised money to help women and children who had been trafficked in Thailand as part of the country's prostitution industry. The first performances of She Has a Name in the United States took place in Folsom, California in 2014 under the direction of Emma Eldridge, who was a 23-year-old college student at the time.

Bryden MacDonald is a Canadian playwright.

Lynda Chanwai-Earle is a New Zealand writer and radio producer. Her written work includes plays, poems and film scripts. The play Ka Shue – Letters Home in 1996 is semi-autobiographical and is significant in New Zealand literature as the first authentically New Zealand–Chinese play for mainstream audiences.

Lachlan Philpott is an Australian theatre writer, director, and teacher. He graduated from the University of New South Wales, the Victorian College of the Arts, and NIDA Playwrights Studio. He was Artistic Director of Tantrum Theatre in Newcastle, writer-in-residence at Red Stitch in Melbourne, and the Literary Associate at ATYP. His 18 plays have been performed across Australia as well as Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. He was Chair of the Australian Writers' Guild Playwrights’ Committee between 2012 and 2016, and was the recipient of the Fulbright Scholarship Inaugural Professional Playwriting Scholarship in 2014.... In 2012 his play Silent Disco won the Stage Award at the 45th annual AWGIE Awards.

Kelly Rebar is a Canadian playwright and screenwriter, best known for the play and film Bordertown Café.

Sunil Kuruvilla is a Canadian playwright from Waterloo, Ontario. He is most noted for his play Rice Boy, which was a shortlisted finalist for the Governor General's Award for English-language drama at the 2003 Governor General's Awards.

Wendell Smith is a Canadian actor born in Antigonish, Nova Scotia.

Janet Munsil is a Canadian playwright based in Victoria, British Columbia. She is most noted for her plays That Elusive Spark and Be Still. Munsil is also a theatre director and has served as artistic director of Intrepid Theatre and the Victoria Fringe Festival.

Daniel Arnold is a Canadian actor and writer based in Vancouver, British Columbia. He is most noted as cowriter with Darrell Dennis and Medina Hahn of Inheritance: a pick-the-path experience, a stage play which was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for English-language drama at the 2022 Governor General's Awards. Inheritance: a pick-the-path experience is a stage play about indigenous land claims which features points at which the audience can vote on the direction the story would take, requiring the actors to be prepared for at least 50 different possible permutations of the performance.

Medina Hahn is a Canadian actress and writer based in Vancouver, British Columbia. She is most noted as cowriter with Darrell Dennis and Daniel Arnold of Inheritance: a pick-the-path experience, a stage play which was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for English-language drama at the 2022 Governor General's Awards. Inheritance: a pick-the-path experience is a stage play about indigenous land claims which features points at which the audience can vote on the direction the story would take, requiring the actors to be prepared for at least 50 different possible permutations of the performance.

References

  1. 1 2 "Manitoban Drader among 'fresh crop'". Winnipeg Free Press , October 21, 2003.
  2. "Opposite eras attract in gay history story". Vancouver Sun , October 23, 1998.
  3. "Mother's Day shows feature veteran voices". Windsor Star , May 5, 2007.
  4. "What's to see at Fringe?" Calgary Herald , August 25, 1989.
  5. "Three new writers join playRites stable". Calgary Herald , August 22, 1992.
  6. "Fringe buzzes under greasepaint and sweat". Edmonton Journal , August 16, 1992.
  7. 1 2 "Playwriting contest winners announced". Kingston Whig-Standard , May 6, 1997.
  8. "Cover / fringe". Winnipeg Free Press , July 12, 2007.
  9. "Not quite OK". Sacramento News & Review , November 8, 2012.
  10. "Sit up and pay attention" Archived 2014-12-16 at the Wayback Machine . The Link , March 23, 2010.
  11. "Big surprises as book awards shortlisted". Edmonton Journal , October 21, 2003.
  12. "Bram, Revoyr among Lambda Literary winners". The Advocate , June 10, 2004.