Bio
Award-winning playwright and filmmaker David Widdicombe studied theatre at York University and early in his career became Playwright-In-Residence at Toronto’s Factory Theatre, where many of his plays would premiere. He graduated from Norman Jewison’s Canadian Film Centre and the Toronto International Film Festival Talent Lab.
His play Science Fiction was named “One of the year’s two best new plays” by the National Post and was nominated for four Dora Mavor Moore Awards including Outstanding New Play and Outstanding Production. It won the Prix Aurora Award, Canada’s highest honour in Science Fiction & Fantasy Writing for Best New Work.
David’s plays have been produced across Canada and internationally. His other plays include The River Lady, Dinosaur Dreams, Swamp Baby & Other Tales and Wake, chosen by critics as one of the top ten plays at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
In 1992 David was named one of the top ten theatre artists of the year by NOW Magazine. In 1995 playwright George F Walker and the Arts Foundation of Toronto awarded him the Toronto Arts Protégé Award for Drama. David has also written ten plays for CBC Radio. A collection of his stage plays was published in 2000 under the title The River Lady & Other Plays.
As a filmmaker David wrote and directed the dark comedy Santa Baby, which won the award for Best Film Comedy at the Los Angeles International Short Film Festival in 2006 and was short-listed for an Academy Award nomination. For his work on the film David was nominated for the Norman Jewison Award for Directing at the Yorkton Short Film Festival. In 2013 David was nominated for the Writers Guild of Canada Jim Burt Screenwriting Prize for his feature screenplay Junkyard Dogs.
David passed away July 8th, 2017 at the age of 55.
