Brad Fraser

Brad Fraser (born June 28, 1959, Edmonton, Alberta) is a Canadian playwright, screenwriter and cultural commentator. He is one of the most widely produced Canadian playwrights both in Canada and internationally. His plays typically feature a harsh yet comical view of contemporary life in Canada, including frank depictions of sexuality, drug use and violence.[1]

Career

Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love,
Produced by Workshop West Theatre
Directed by Brad Fraser
Designed by David Skelton.

Fraser first came to his prominence as a playwright with Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love, an episodically structured play about a group of thirtysomethings trying to find their way through life in Edmonton, Alberta, while the city is haunted by a serial killer. It was a hit at the Alberta Theatre Projects' playRites '89. The play was named one of the 10 Best Plays of 1992 by Time Magazine.

While the New York production of Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love attracted significant attention, Fraser has not directed his career toward New York. Indeed, his next script, Poor Super Man, had its premiere in Cincinnati, Ohio. Coming three years after the 1991 Robert Mapplethorpe controversy in Cincinnati, Poor Super Man inspired international headlines when the board of directors of Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati temporarily canceled the production because of its anticipated obscenity.[2] After a public outcry, the production was reinstated. Poor Super Man opened without incident.

Fraser won London's Evening Standard Award for Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love in 1993. Porter Anderson, theater columnist for New York's Village Voice, conceded that Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love was "under-rated during its 1991 run at the Orpheum", and that the play "had a grunge sensuality that could seduce a young audience to live theatre" and a "slasher plot [that] ripped away at the exhausted cynicism of alienated Canadian youths".

Fraser also has written two films, Love and Human Remains based on his play Unidentified Human Remains... and Leaving Metropolis, both adaptations of his plays. He has also written for the television series Queer as Folk, was host of his own Toronto-based television talk show, Jawbreaker, and for a period of time wrote a biweekly column for the Canadian gay magazine fab. Keanu Reeves had his first acting role in the Toronto production of Fraser's play Wolfboy in the year 1985 at Theatre Passe Muraille, Toronto, Ontario.

Plays and performances

External links

References

  1. ↑ Brad Fraser official website, bradfraser.net; accessed October 22, 2014.
  2. ↑
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