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Showing posts from April, 2016

CATHLEEN ROOTSAERT ON WRITING MASS EFFECT, THREE DEAD TROLLS IN A BAGGIE (MF GALAXY 075)

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HOW IMPROV HELPS WRITING, THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF LAUGHS WRITERS MUST UNDERSTAND, THE GAME MECHANICS OF IMPROV, FACING RESISTANCE TO HUMOUR ON MASS EFFECT 3 LISTEN/DOWNLOAD FREE Cathleen Rootsaert is a remarkable creator. She wrote plot and dialogue for the video game Mass Effect 3 by BioWare, and edited dialogue for the studio’s Star Wars: The Old Republic and Mass Effect 2 games. In the late 1980s, along with rising improv stars Wes Borg, Neil Grahn, and Paul Mather, she co-founded the legendary Edmonton comedy troupe Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie, which had a brief run as a CBC television series. She’s the playwright behind Mimi Amok, After You, Legacy, Make Me and Mama Mia! Me a Mama? which won the Sterling Award for outstanding new work. She also won the 2005 Alberta Playwriting Award for Abigail in Twilight. She appeared on the Ken Finkelman series The Newsroom and the Winnipeg Comedy Festival special I’m Becoming a Mother. She’s a core member of the two-deca

VERN THIESSEN, GOVERNOR GENERAL AWARD WINNING PLAYWRIGHT, ON SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT, WHY THEATRE BEATS NEW MEDIA, AND REVISION STRATEGIES FOR WINNERS (MF GALAXY 073)

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LINK BETWEEN IMMERSIVE THEATRE AND VIDEO GAMES, EFFECT OF EDMONTON INTERNATIONAL FRINGE FESTIVAL ON THEATRE ACROSS CANADA, WHY THIESSEN IS A DEVOTED PANTSER LISTEN/DOWNLOAD FREE Vern Thiessen’s plays are among the most produced theatre in Canada, and his work has delighted audiences across the United States, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. His many dramas include Lenin’s Embalmers, Apple , and Vimy . He’ s written for young audiences, worked on a commission for the late Leonard Nimoy, and created an adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage . He’s won the Elizabeth Sterling Haynes Award, the Alberta Playwrights' Network Competition, and Canada’s highest literary honour, the Governor General’s Award. Despite coming from a Mennonite family in Winnipeg, Thiessen spent seventeen years in E-Town and won the Canadian Jewish Playwriting Competition for Einstein’s Gift. For seven years he also directed youth and community engagement theatre education in Harlem,

TOM FONTANA, SHOWRUNNER SUPREME OF OZ, HOMICIDE, THE BORGIAS + ST. ELSEWHERE ON CREATING ICONIC, UNFORGETTABLE CHARACTERS WHILE “COLOURISING” US TELEVISION (MF GALAXY 072)

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MULTIPLE  AWARD-WINNING TV WRITER ON SOCIAL REALISM, CHALLENGING VIEWERS + HIMSELF THROUGH  DRAMA, AND HIS ARCHETYPE OF THE “MALCOLM X PROFESSIONAL” Tom Fontana   is  the writer/producer and/or showrunner on St. Elsewhere, Homicide: Life on the Street, Oz, Copper, The Jury, The Beat, The Bedford Diaries, and The Borgias. LISTEN/DOWNLOAD He’s also one American television’s most  celebrated writers. He’s received the Cable Ace Award, the  Humanitas Prize, an Edgar Award , the Austin Film Festival’s Outstanding Television Writer Award, first prize at Switzerland’s  Cinéma Tout Ecran Festival, three Emmys ,  three awards from the Writers' Guild, four from the Television Critics Association, and four  Peabodys . And all this, if his website is to be believed, without using a single computer--Fontana claims to write longhand on yellow legal paper. Long  before HBO’s  The Wire  took all the credit for long-form, serial innovation in US television addressing racism and oppressi