John Gray (playwright)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

John MacLachlan Gray (né John Howard Gray) (born 26 September 1946) is a Canadian writer-composer-performer for stage, TV, film, radio and print. He is best-known for his stage musicals and for his two seasons as a satirist on CBC TV's The Journal, as well as an author, speaker and social critic on cultural-political issues.

Born in Ottawa, Ontario, and raised in Nova Scotia, Gray obtained a B.A. at Mount Allison University, and an M.A. at the University of British Columbia. While attending the latter, he founded Tamahnous Theatre, and served as its director from 1971 to 1974. He then joined Theatre Passe Muraille in Toronto, Ontario, where he began writing and composing for the stage.

In 1978, with Eric Peterson, he wrote and composed Billy Bishop Goes to War, which appeared on Broadway in New York City in 1980, produced by Mike Nichols, and in London's West End. It has since been performed in over 150 independent productions in Canada and the United States. The play appeared on television in a BBC-CBC co-production, and in a German version, Billy Bishop Steig Auf. Billy Bishop Goes to War was the winner of the Los Angeles Drama Critics Award in 1981, the Governor General's Award for Drama, and the 1982 Floyd S. Chalmers Canadian Play Award.

Gray has written and composed six other musicals including 18 Wheels, Rock and Roll, Don Messer's Jubilee, Health, and Amelia. Rock and Roll won a Dora Mavor Moore Award in 1982, and became an award-winning feature video entitled King of Friday Night.

Gray's most recent musical is TheTree.TheTower.TheFlood, three Bible stories for the age of information, commissioned by CBC Radio Drama.

In 2000, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada for "his contribution to Canada's cultural landscape". [1]

John Gray lives in Vancouver, British Columbia with his wife Beverlee and their two boys, Zachary and Ezra.