Chris has been active as a theatre artist since he graduated from the Theatre Arts Program at MacEwan in 1990. There was a six year hiatus during the heavy period of touring with Captain Tractor between 1994 and 2000, but even so theatre has always been his greatest passion. Chris has worked professionally as an actor, sound designer, composer, lyricist, musical director and recently even as a playwright. He has received numerous awards and nominations in all of these fields. (Well, not play writing yet, but he’s working on it.)
If there is a place where Chris feels the most at home it is that place where pop music meets theatre. This is where he feels he can contribute the most. It makes sense that writing musicals is what he finds himself doing a lot of the time.
So far Chris has been on the creative end of six new works of musical theatre. These plays are:
- Frankenstein
- Dr. Sterling and his Silver Shark
- Red Lips, The Musical
- The Winter’s Tale Project
- WedLOCKED
- Saint Aggie’s ’84
Currently Chris is in the process of creating a new musical, based on Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare, which has been commissioned by two Alberta High Schools, with generous funding from the Edmonton Arts Council and the Alberta Foundation for the Performing Arts. Initially, an eighty-minute one act version of the show will be presented in August of 2012 at the Edinburgh Fringe in Scotland, by students of Calgary’s Lord Beaverbrook School, as part of the American High School Theatre Festival. In 2013 the full two-act version of the show will be performed by students of Strathcona High School in Edmonton.
