Writing

David Demchuk was born and raised in Winnipeg and now lives in Toronto.

A playwright, independent filmmaker, screenwriter, essayist, critic and journalist, he has been writing for theatre, film, television, radio and other media for nearly thirty years. This past year (2011), Pinknews.co.uk named him one of the top 25 most influential LGBT people on twitter worldwide.

Known primarily for his work in Canadian theatre, David’s plays have been produced in Toronto, New York, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Vancouver, Chicago, San Francisco, at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and in London, England.

His best-known theatrical works are Rosalie Sings Alone (Tarragon Theatre), If Betty Should Rise (Buddies in Bad Times), Touch (Buddies in Bad Times – Dora Award winner, 1986), Stay (White Queen Theatre – Dora Award nominee, 1999) and Mattachine (Proving Ground Theatre/Toronto Fringe Festival).

An experienced radio dramatist, David has written CBC Radio adaptations of William Gibson’s The Winter Market and H.G.Wells’s The Island of Dr. Moreau, as well as a radio series for precocious children based on the writings of Lewis Carroll, titled Alice in Cyberspace. His original radio drama on HIV/AIDS, Alaska, was nominated for an ACTRA award. He was also the host and creator of the CBC Radio music/performance series Minutes to Midnight.

His publications include the short-fiction cycle Seven Dreams and the collected Alice in Cyberspace episodes in book form, appearances in anthologies Making, Out! (Touch), Outspoken (Rosalie Sings Alone) and Canadian Brash (If Betty Should Rise and Rosalie Sings Alone) and reviews, essays, interviews and columns in such magazines as Toronto Life, The Body Politic, Xtra!, What! Magazine, Cinema Canada and Prairie Fire, as well as the Toronto Star.

The first five pieces from Seven Dreams were published in Andrei Codrescu’s legendary literary magazine Exquisite Corpse, and all seven have been translated and published in Russia.

David began his film career in 1980 at the Winnipeg Film Group, where he wrote and directed the the short video The Killing Jar, the short film Rushes, and wrote the script for Ed Ackerman’s animated film Sarah’s Dream. His work with the Winnipeg Gay Media Collective resulted in a half-hour video drama, which he wrote and directed, titled Flying South.

David is a graduate of the Canadian Film Centre’s Professional Screenwriting Programme (a.k.a. ‘the Bootcamp’), their senior program for film and television writers. His feature film script Fluffy is currently in development.