| Michael MacLennan | |
| Birth Name: | Michael Lewis MacLennan |
| Birth Date: | 5 June 1968 |
| Birth Place: | Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada |
| Occupation: | playwright, television writer, producer |
| Alma Mater: | University of Victoria |
| Known For: | Queer as Folk, Bomb Girls |
Michael Lewis MacLennan (born June 5, 1968) is a Canadian playwright, television writer and television producer,[1] best known as a writer and producer of television series such as Queer as Folk and Bomb Girls.
As a playwright he is a two-time nominee for the Governor General's Award for English-language drama, and the only playwright to win the Herman Voaden Playwriting Competition twice.
Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, MacLennan began his career as a stage actor.[2] In his first theatre role at age 13, he was cast to play a woman, and later in his career he produced a short performance piece about his fear at the time that his parents would see the play and realize that he was gay.[3] He moved to Victoria in 1986 to study English at the University of Victoria.[4]
His first full-length play, Beat the Sunset, premiered at the Victoria Fringe Festival in 1993.[5] It was later staged in Vancouver in 1995,[6] winning MacLennan a Jessie Award for outstanding emerging playwright[7] and the Theatrum National Playwriting Competition.[8]
His second play, Leaning Over Railings, premiered in 1995.[8] His 1996 Grace won the Theatre BC National Playwriting Competition,[9] and has been produced across Canada and internationally. During this era, he also wrote a number of short one-act plays, including Wake No Clocks[10] and Come On!.[11]
He then began to study screenwriting at the Canadian Film Centre,[4] although he continued to write plays during this time.[12] He won the Herman Voaden Playwrighting Competition in 1998 for his play The Shooting Stage,[13] and in 2001 for Last Romantics.[14] Both plays were later nominated for the Governor General's Award for English drama, The Shooting Stage at the 2002 Governor General's Awards[15] and Last Romantics at the 2003 Governor General's Awards.[16]
He began his television career as writer and story editor for Sullivan Entertainment's television series Wind at My Back, and Super Rupert.[4] He then became a writer and co-executive producer on Queer as Folk, writing 14 episodes over four seasons.[17] Concurrently with the final season of Queer as Folk, he co-created and produced the Citytv dramedy series Godiva's in 2005.[18]
In 2006, he created a theatrical adaptation of Douglas Coupland's novel Life After God,[19] resulting in Coupland inviting him to write and coproduce the television series adaptation of Coupland's novel jPod.[20]
He was cocreator and executive producer of Bomb Girls, which premiered in 2011.[21]
His other credits as a writer and producer have included The Guard, Being Erica, Flashpoint, Bitten and The Fosters.