Brad Fraser

• Born: June 28, 1959
• Place of Birth: Edmonton, Alberta

Biography

Brad Fraser was born in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, on June 28, 1959. He has described himself as Métis, a term used in Canada to describe people of mixed race who can trace their ancestry to Canada's first European settlers and its native First Nations Peoples. He attended many schools throughout his childhood, which he has described as rough. In interviews, Fraser has described his father as a violent alcoholic and has said that he was sexually abused by an older male relative who was not his father. Fraser lived in a number of roadside motels throughout northern British Columbia during this period. To seek escape from his troubled childhood, he spent much of his time either reading comic books or watching sitcoms—two art forms that continue to inspire his playwriting.

Fraser is famous—or infamous—for being very outspoken, a trait he traces back to childhood, and willing to be controversial. He has described himself as the type of child who frequently told a teacher that he or she had made an error or was a liar. This came, in part, because he felt like an outsider through much of his adolescence, when it became clear to him that he was gay.

Career

Fraser won his first playwriting competition at the age of seventeen. Each work he has written and produced has, in its own way, exposed some form of hypocrisy, particularly of the sexual variety. He also has sought to expose bias, particularly toward people in the LGBTQ community.

Fraser has stated that he sees his work as running counter to the domestic dramas that were prevalent in Canadian theater in the 1960s and 1970s. Throughout his career, he actively sought to bring people of his generation into the theater by penning works that are confrontational and witty. He wants people to walk out of his plays feeling entertained and having something to think about.

From the earliest point in his career, Fraser wanted to show people his own age that theater was not dry and stodgy but cool. To that end, he often incorporates elements of music (including punk and dance) and freeform literature (such as the work of the Beat movement) into his plays. His often-controversial body of work has earned him the nickname of the "bad boy of Canadian theater," though Fraser himself has eschewed the title, saying that he feels reviewers use it to minimize his work.

Personal Life

Fraser has been openly gay and an outspoken advocate of civil rights for LGBTQ people throughout his career. He has condemned numerous antigay policies, including the ones instituted and supported by President Vladimir Putin of Russia. He has also been highly critical of how Western nations, including Canada and the United States, have become beholden to corporate interests.

Major Works

Fraser's works tend to explore the lives of gay characters, particularly their sexual lives, in a very open and often graphic way. Nude and sexual scenes permeate his works, as does a candid and sometimes darkly humorous perspective. On a number of occasions, vice squads in various cities have shut down, or attempted to shut down, productions of his plays for violating local obscenity laws.

Although Fraser has been writing since the 1970s, his breakout work came in 1989 with Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love, which premiered at the Alberta Theatre Projects PlayRites festival and went on to become an international hit. It remains the play most associated with his name. Unidentified Human Remains tells the story of several young people, including a former actor and waiter named David, who are trying to find emotionally and sexually fulfilling relationships in Edmonton, Alberta, at a time when the city is under threat by a serial killer who may be known to the main characters. Fraser earned the Evening Standard Theatre Awards' 1993 Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright for this play. A film version, directed by French Canadian director Denys Arcand, was released under the title of Love & Human Remains in 1993 and starred Thomas Gibson, Ruth Marshall, and Cameron Bancroft. Fraser also wrote the script for the film, for which he won the 1994 Genie Award for best adapted screenplay.

Fraser's next play was Poor Super Man, produced in 1994 by the Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati. It is, of all his works, the play that most directly confronts the AIDS epidemic. Like its predecessor, it was produced internationally, and it was named one of the top ten plays of the year by Time. With a plot that parallels a 1990s storyline from the Superman comics, in which Superman reveals his true identity to his longtime girlfriend Lois Lane and ultimately dies, Poor Super Man follows the character of David from Unidentified Remains into a new phase of his life. Now a respected painter, David is confronted with the fact that many of his friends are living with AIDS. To augment his income, he also works at a diner run by a heterosexual couple. David eventually becomes intimately involved with the husband, a relationship that has dire consequences for everyone involved. The play was adapted into the 2002 film Leaving Metropolis, which starred Troy Ruptash, Vince Corazza, and Lynda Boyd as the characters at the center of the love triangle. The film, which Fraser both adapted and directed, won the audience favorite award at the 2003 Mardi Gras Film Festival in Sydney, Australia, an annual LGBTQ film festival.

Martin Yesterday, which premiered in 1997 at the Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in Toronto and has been produced in theaters across Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom, is one of Fraser's more controversial works, featuring depictions of graphic simulated sex on stage. In the play, a comic book artist named Matt becomes romantically involved with a famous politician named Martin Yesterday. Matt becomes embittered with both the gay community and Martin himself, who is hiding some considerable dark secrets from his past.

Fraser's play Snake in Fridge, a commission for the Royal Exchange theater in Manchester, England, premiered in 2000. On his official website, Fraser described this play as "one of [his] personal favourites." The setting is a Victorian house in Toronto, long going to ruin. The owner of the house is Corbett, an angry club kid who grew up in it and now lives there with seven other people, all of whom are sex workers. Part haunted-house mystery, part inside look at modern club life, Snake in Fridge describes the lives of societal outcasts, people experiencing addiction, and lost souls with considerable humor and detail, in a plot that involves searching for a suddenly revived boa constrictor that escaped from the fridge and could be eating bodies in the basement.

Cold Meat Party premiered at the Royal Exchange in 2003. The play follows an odd reunion of sorts as three college friends come back together for the funeral of one of their mutual friends. They all stay at a bed-and-breakfast in Manchester, which was owned by their deceased friend, and find themselves confronted with episodes from their pasts and the changes their lives have undergone. This forces them to consider the empty aspects of their lives, especially when they compare them to how they lived years earlier.

Nominated for several Manchester Evening News Theatre Awards, including the award for best new play, True Love Lies also had its debut at the Royal Exchange, in 2009. It was also produced in Canada at the Citadel Theatre. The play is based on a personal experience; Fraser had by accident met a former flame who had gone on to marry a woman. Fraser adapted this experience to the stage, giving the married couple two teenage children, Madison and Royce. When the flirty Madison applies for a position as waitstaff at a new restaurant, she learns that David, the owner, was once her father's lover. Surprisingly to David, Madison is not particularly upset by the knowledge, having come of age at a time when sexuality is acknowledged to be far more fluid than it was in her father's generation. Even more surprising to David is the fact that Madison finds him sexually appealing.

Five @ Fifty, which premiered in 2011 at the Royal Exchange, was a direct result of Fraser's experience casting the role of the mother in True Love Lies. The number of actors auditioning for that one part brought home for Fraser the lack of theatrical roles available to older women, and he was upset that he had to turn away so many talented people. Wanting to create roles for middle-aged women, he penned Five @ Fifty, about a group of women who stage an intervention for one of their number, Olivia, after she goes a little wild at her fiftieth birthday celebration. A trio of friends descends on Olivia, much to her annoyance and that of Nora, her longtime partner. During the play, the group discusses how alcohol and drugs have wrecked their lives and bad relationships, bad sex, and abuse have shattered their self-esteem. Five @ Fifty premiered in Canada in 2016 at the PAL Studio Theater in Vancouver, as a coproduction of Ruby Slippers Theatre and Zee Zee Theatre.

Kill Me Now, Fraser's play about euthanasia, premiered at the Workshop West Theater in 2013. He also directed the play. The main thrust of the story focuses on a widower named Jake Sturdy, who cares for his physically disabled son, Joey. Joey is going through puberty and is unable to masturbate, which adds to his already frustrating existence. Rounding out the characters in the play are Jake's altruistic sister, Twyla; Joey's school friend Rowdy, who has a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder; and Robyn, Jake's married friend with whom he has been carrying on a years-long affair. When Jake himself is diagnosed with a debilitating condition, his carefully constructed world suddenly begins to fall apart.

Kill Me Now was inspired by Fraser's own nephew, who has XXY syndrome, also known Klinefelter syndrome. Fraser wanted to dramatize his nephew's experience for the stage, including the experience of dealing with a severely disabled person from the perspective of a caregiver. He also wanted to include the sexual lives of the disabled, something that is rarely addressed in society. Like many of his previous plays, Kill Me Now was met with considerable controversy, with some critics suggesting that he had mischaracterized the disabled and the lives of their families. They also suggested that he had been remiss in casting an able-bodied actor as Joey. Fraser addressed these criticisms in an article for the Stage, arguing that physical disabilities are myriad and that his theatrical version is just one interpretation and is not intended to be symbolic of every disabled person's experiences. He also pointed out that, as "a queer Metis person from a rough background," he has always sought to portray an outsider's perspective in theater and is sensitive to it. Finally, he made the point that acting is a physically challenging role and that most theaters, run by commercial interests, will sooner use a physically abled actor to play a disabled character, simply because of the cost and effort required to have a disabled actor play the same role. The play was produced again at the Touchstone Theatre in 2018.

In 2022, the Bridge Street Theatre commissioned Shelly's Shadow, a story based on Fraser's experience with an elderly neighbor. As her health declined, Fraser told the story of the woman and her dog in Facebook posts and text messages, and his friends and followers enjoyed following the story. These served as the outline of the play's script.

In addition to working as a playwright, Fraser has also directed plays in Canada, including Drew Hayden Taylor's The Berlin Blues, which premiered at the Blyth Festival in 2017. His other early produced plays include Mutants, which premiered in Edmonton in 1981; Wolfboy, which premiered in Saskatoon in 1982; Rude Noises (for a Blank Generation), which premiered in Toronto in 1982; Chainsaw Love, which premiered at the Edmonton Fringe Festival in 1985; and Young Art, which premiered at the Theatre Passe Muraille in 1986. Additional produced plays include Return of the Bridge (1989), The Ugly Man (1990), and Prom Night of the Living Dead (1991, musical with Darrin Hagen). Many of his most notable plays have been published by NeWest Press and Playwrights Canada Press.

Fraser has also written for print, radio, film, and television throughout his career. In the print medium he has most notably written for the conservative National Post, having chosen to do so because he wanted to write for an audience who might disagree with his social and political viewpoints. He has also penned several screenplays, including for the television film Retail (2007) as well as for Love & Human Remains and Leaving Metropolis, and was credited as a writer for the documentary Symposium: Ladder of Love (1996). Then, in 2021, Fraser published a memoir titled All the Rage. On television he is best known for being a principal writer for the US series Queer as Folk from 2003 to 2005. He also served as the host for the Canadian talk show Jawbreaker for two seasons beginning in 2002.

Brad Fraser's plays have won numerous awards, including the Dora Mavor Moore Award, London's Time Out Award for best new play, the Alberta Culture Playwriting Competition, and the Chalmers Award. In 1993 he received the Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright. Poor Super Man was nominated for the Governor General's Award in 1996.

Bibliography

Charlebois, Gaetan, and Anne Nothof. "Fraser, Brad." Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia, 26 Aug. 2022, www.canadiantheatre.com/dict.pl?term=Brad%20Fraser. Accessed 22 Apr. 2023.

Fraser, Brad. "Brad Fraser: Did I Get My Play about Disability 'Wrong'? No, but We Need to Talk about This." The Stage, 9 Mar, 2015, www.thestage.co.uk/opinion/brad-fraser-did-i-get-my-play-about-disability-wrong-no-but-we-need-to-talk-about-this. Accessed 22 Apr. 2023.

Fraser, Brad. "Brad Fraser Reflects on His Life in Theatre and Loved Ones He's Lost Along the Way in His Memoir All the Rage." Interview by Shelagh Rogers. CBC, 25 Mar. 2022, www.cbc.ca/radio/thenextchapter/full-episode-aug-27-2022-1.6395915/brad-fraser-reflects-on-his-life-in-theatre-and-loved-ones-he-s-lost-along-the-way-in-his-memoir-all-the-rage-1.6395917. Accessed 26 June 2024.

Fraser, Brad. "In Conversation with Love and Human Remains Playwright Brad Fraser, Part 1." Interview by Tosha Fowler. Cor Theatre, 18 May 2015, cortheatre.org/in-conversation-with-love-and-human-remains-playwright-brad-fraser-part-1/. Accessed 12 Sept. 2017.

Fraser, Brad. "Q&A with Playwright Brad Fraser: 'I Have No Choice but to Be Who I Am.'" Interview by David Rockne Corrigan. National Post, 30 Aug. 2013, nationalpost.com/entertainment/theatre/qa-with-playwright-brad-fraser-i-have-no-choice-but-to-be-who-i-am. Accessed 22 Apr. 2023.

Fraser, Brad. "The Monday Q&A: Playwright Brad Fraser, No Longer a Bad Boy." Interview by J. Kelly Nestruck. The Globe and Mail, 11 Apr. 2011, www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/theatre-and-performance/the-monday-qa-playwright-brad-fraser-no-longer-a-bad-boy/article575931. Accessed 22 Apr. 2023.

King, Randall. "Beyond the Comfort Zone." Winnipeg Free Press, 25 Mar. 2017, www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-life/entertainment/arts/beyond-the-comfort-zone-417033304.html. Accessed 22 Apr. 2023.

"Plays." Brad Fraser, www.bradfraser.net/#plays. Accessed 22 Apr. 2023.

Wassenberg, Anya. "Canadian Playwright Brad Fraser on Keeping Things Interesting." HuffPost, Canadian ed., 3 Oct. 2012, www.huffingtonpost.ca/anya-wassenberg/brad-fraser‗b‗1886723.html. Accessed 22 Apr. 2023.