I studied Play-writing 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.
April 2002 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, has written a scholarly paper about this play for Theatre Research in Canada. Postmodern DisPlay: Staging the Mind of Marshall McLuhan: http://journals.hil.unb.ca/index.php/tric/article/view/9690/9748.
The Illumination of Marshall McLuhan – YouTube. View the whole play and musical interludes.
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.
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 screenplay, “Love Under Will”, which you could say is like Juno meets Rosemary’s Baby. A stage play, “Meet For Meat” which is about our society’s ambivalence towards producing and consuming meat.
Michael Charrois 