Backstage Tour with Bonnie Gratz

Doug Brown’s Career Started With A Super 8 Camera

I have worked as a theatre artist for years, but I never stop being inspired by how artists get started and what passionately drives them to create.

Currently I am directing the talented filmmaker-producer-actor Doug Brown, in the award winning play, Super 8. After a full day of filming his show Go!Okanagan on Shaw TV and rehearsals for Super 8 with lovely Dorothy Dalba, Doug kindly chatted with me about his career.

Doug and I first met just under a year ago when he attended our first play reading, Rebecca. I had previously seen his captivating performance as Mitch in KAS’ Streetcar Named Desire. What I didn’t know at that time was that Doug is an ambitious creative genius who is always working on multiple projects in front of the camera, behind the camera and onstage.

His adventures in the arts started when his father brought home a Super 8 camera. A quiet teen, Doug diligently helped in the family’s two camera stores until one day his dad said “he could stay in retail forever but where he really needed to be was in school.” That push sent him to Emily Carr where he majored in film; starting a ball rolling for Doug that just has never stopped.

It was the late 1980’s and Doug collaborated with fellow Emily Carr grads on music videos for punk bands like DOA and mainstream artists like Doug and The Slugs. Documentaries followed about the salmon run, the brutality of residential schools, and aboriginal artists from Northern Canada, but life in inner city Vancouver was brutal and Doug and his wife longed to raise a family somewhere safe. A job working for Shaw TV in Penticton came up, they jumped, and have stayed- for over 25 years- working and raising their daughters. Doug was always behind the scenes until one day his producer said, “Your turn in front of the camera” and the rest is history.

Doug got the acting bug seven years ago when he was promoting auditions for Shakespeare Kelowna on Shaw TV. Doug was encouraged to audition by the Artistic Director and he landed the lead in Much Ado About Nothing then marquee roles in Macbeth, Hamlet and A Mid-summer Night’s Dream.

This season Doug has played a serial killer in Christie In Love, a panicked actor in Noises Off and now he plays a quirky Super 8 Motel inspector just waiting for August 8, 2008 in Super 8. Later this summer he’ll be battling zombies in an indie movie.

While Doug’s first artistic impulse is to work with the camera, his exploration of all things creative seems boundless. Doug is still that quiet guy, but he is very driven and his artistry can be seen throughout the Okanagan!

Check out Go!Okanagan daily on Shaw TV and see Doug in the upcoming romantic comedy Super 8, July 17-20 @ 7:30 PM nightly & 2:30 PM on Saturday at Kelowna’s Black Box Theatre. Tickets at the door or at www.selectyourtickets.com .

 

 

Bonnie Gratz is an actor, director and playwright who is the Artistic Director of Kelowna’s New Vintage Theatre. She is a member of the Playwright’s Guild of Canada and The Literary and Dramaturges of North America. For more on Bonnie, check out www.bonnie-gratz.com

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.