Todd
McGinnis 
... is a playwright, screenwriter, actor, director and producer. Born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada he continues to reside and work in the G.T.A.
As a playwright, Todd is the prolific author of more than 20 full length and one-act plays that have been staged since 1996, the bulk of them written and produced over the past few years.
Author's Bio:
Todd McGinnis has enjoyed great success writing for stage, independent movies and alternative live-performance venues.
A natural-born story-teller, Todd was drawn to writing, acting and filmmaking in his early years. Throughout the 1980's he pursued these separate disciplines always with an eye towards finding projects that would allow him to combine his talents.
Through the late '80's and early '90's, Todd studied all manner of media production with film and television production being his main focus. He wrote and produced numerous independent and student short films as well as corporate and industrial videos.
In the mid-90's, having freelanced on the technical side of film/video production and finding himself further and further distanced from the "creative end" of the process, he decided to start over, return to his root interests: writing and acting.
In a very short time Todd became a very busy working actor in live theatre, and so, with the means and time required to produce films temporarily beyond his grasp, but still anxious to continue to hone and develop his writing skills, Todd chose to focus his full attention on writing for the stage and live performance.
After scripting "Manuscript for Murder", for Brampton’s Interactive Murder Mystery dinner theatre company in early 1996, he was asked by the City of Brampton’s Arts Council to co-author a truly frightening, plot-driven, Interactive Hallowe’en Haunting experience as a seasonal fund-raiser. This first haunting, with a plot rooted in local history, was so successful (and scary) that he and co-author William Poulin were asked to come up with another one for 1997 as well.
Shortly thereafter, Todd became the first Canadian hired to write the festival-day in-house scripts for the American-owned Ontario Renaissance Festival in 1999 along with researcher/writer John Lunman.
In 2000, along with Tracy Rowland, Todd co-founded Playing After Dark Ltd., a theatre company based in Brampton, Ontario with a mandate to create and premiere new comedic works with broad audience appeal. These were to be shows that provided adults with a great evening's entertainment but more than that, something they could share with friends and family, from teens to seniors.
The company’s very successful debut, in March 2001, was Knave of Hearts, a farce set in Renaissance England that follows the hilarious misadventures of a fast-talking, swashbuckling con-man named Jack Hawkins. This four man/four woman ensemble piece whirls about Jack and his desperate attempts to play matchmaker for two unlikely couples in order to avoid being forced into an unwanted marriage himself. Favourable comparisons were heaped on the show, likening elements of it to everything from Shakespeare to Ray Cooney, from Molière to Blackadder, from Mel Brooks to Monty Python and John Cleese's Fawlty Towers. Audiences raved, local reviewers enthused and on the strength of this one script alone, Todd was commissioned to write two new works.
One commission was for a series of scripts comprising an entire Renaissance Festival day by Artistic Director David Cairns for Camelot Era Productions.
The second commission came from the Brampton Theatre Office’s newly-formed theatrical production division when Scott Lale, Fellow of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, requested a Halloween-themed full-length work "that would truly scare". This was a tremendous opportunity for McGinnis to work in one of the most challenging arena's of storytelling: horror. Even more, the show had to be suitable for all ages (or, at least 12 and older), accomadate a large cast and an extremely limited performance space. But McGinnis rose to the challenge. He made the playhouse itself the setting for the play and deftly wove together an evening of thematically-linked vignettes, spanning the 20th Century, and telling the tale of a haunted playhouse and of those who are touched by the curse laid upon it.
The result, "Laugh?" I Thought I’d DIE!" (a.k.a. Stage Fright), an evening of side-splitting laughter and absolutely terrifying chills, was presented at the Heritage theatre in October 2001.
This marked something of a personal achievement for McGinnis because, while "Laugh?" I Thought I’d DIE!" was running at the Heritage Theatre, Playing After Dark was presenting the other play McGinnis had completed that year, Thunderbolts and Dunderheads, uptown at the Cyril Clark Theatre
As the title suggests, Thunderbolts and Dunderheads was a laugh-minute farce that opened to great reviews and audience response. Set amongst the Greek Gods of Mount Olympus, T&D follows the mis-adventures of Iris, the quirky but loveable Goddess of Rainbows who goes to Mount Olympus looking for a promotion and instead finds herself in danger of being down-sized.
Different as they might be, the scripts for "Laugh?" I Thought I’d DIE!" and Thunderbolts and Dunderheads wound up competing with each other at the First Annual Bloom Awards for the Performing Arts for the Best Original Script Award. Thunderbolts and Dunderheads took the prize, but McGinnis was still thrilled by the terrified shrieks of the audiences at "Laugh?" I Thought I’d DIE!"
2002/2003 saw McGinnis complete three more projects.
The first, a sensual, sexual and truly unnerving one act thriller called Trammel the Cull, which shone a unique light on the areas of male/female sexual dynamics, courting rituals and serial killers. The play took top honours at the 2002 B.B.D.F. One Act Play Festival.
The next play, a comedy to be staged by Playing After Dark, was a step away from smooth-talking swashbucklers and goofy gods and goddesses.
In fact, Gone Fishin', was a downright down-to-earth affair. In this highly entertaining and emotionally moving play about three estranged brothers (sentenced to spend an entire day fishing together as a condition of their late father's will), McGinnis had set himself a challenge: could he write a full-length comedy that took place entirely in a small boat in the middle of a lake and make it compelling, entertaining and fulfilling for audiences. The answer was "Yes", he could, as was proven when "Gone Fishin'" brought an even greater level of success and acclaim to the company. Audiences were both delightedly amused and deeply moved by this contemporary exploration of sibling rivalry and the loss of a parent.
Having created in Gone Fishin' a terrific comedic a showcase for the talents of three male actors, there was only one way to follow up such a success.
It was time to give the ladies' equal stage time.
In early 2003, Playing After Dark staged Todd's latest work, Point of Viewing, a behind the scenes comedy about three women who co-host a top-rated daytime tv talk show, featuring three tremendous leading roles for women. Witty, edgy, sharp, funny, goofy... and real, the ladies of Point of Viewing were all those things, allowing the author to deftly sweep the audience from high-energy farce to heart-wrenching emotional breakthroughs and back to laughter again.
With only a cast of five, Point of Viewing zeroes in on its target by throwing its female leads into a maelstrom of gossip-magazine revelations, backstage politics and charged up emotional breakthroughs. The result is a hilariously disastrous ---and ultimately, emotionally moving--- live-to-air tv broadcast. Once again, audiences and reviewers were delightedly in agreement
Over the fall and winter of 2003-2004, Playing After Dark's production of Gone Fishin' was selected to open the 2004 NewWorks Festival.
Meanwhile, Todd had teamed up with friend and fellow playwright T. Gregory Argall (Award-Winning author of countless one act plays including A Year In The Death Of Eddie Jester, the full length version of which won the Samuel French Canadian Playwriting Competition in 2003). Together, this inspired pair of mad comic geniuses came up with the insanely funny, laugh-a-minute comedy Self-Help for Dummies.
A seven character ensemble piece about a very strange bunch of strangers left to their own devices when their self-absorbed psychologist fails to show up at his office on time, Self-Help for Dummies premiered in October 2004 to rave reviews and audience response and was soon thereafter selected for the singular honour of opening the 2nd Annual NewWorks Playwright Festival in 2005.
This was preceded by a remount of the hilarious Thunderbolts and Dunderheads at the Heritage Theatre this time. Response was universal: people loved the goofy Goddess of Rainbows, Iris and the pantheon of strange gods who seemed determined to make her day as difficult as possible.
Mr. McGinnis is currently diverting his energies away from theatre production for a time, to focus more attention on his careers as an actor and writer for film and television. He has recently adapted his award-winning psychological thriller Trammel the Cull into a feature-length screenplay and is already enjoying industry interest..
Todd is also currently writing the first feature length motion picture to be produced by Playing After Dark Ltd. Shooting will begin in 2007.
But theatre audiences won't be forgotten.
Mssrs. McGinnis and Argall are also currently hard at work on a list of new co-writing projects. First up: a musical which they promise will be "everything anybody could want in a great musical... only with a lot more laughs!" AND a sketch comedy television series.
"STAY TUNED..."
Todd McGinnis's catalogue of plays is rapidly becoming available for purchase in book form from Playing After Dark's online, on-demand publication service at LULU.COM. http://www.lulu.com/playingafterdark