Greg Kramer (caea, actra, equity, sam, twuc)

GREG KRAMER is a director/actor/novelist born in the UK, and trained at Mountview Theatre School in London. He toured with Incubus Theatre in Europe in 1980-81 before emigrating to Canada in 1981 as a result of the massive arts cuts made by then Prime Minister, Maggie Thatcher. He spent seven years on the west coast (Vancouver), a decade in Toronto, and since 1999, has made Montreal his home. His professional credits cover almost thirty years and well over 100 productions across the country, including work at the Vancouver Playhouse, Arts Club Theatres, Theatre Passe-Muraille, Buddies-in-Bad-Times, the Lorraine Kisma Theatre for Young People, Tarragon, Factory, Centaur, Geordie, the Segal Centre for Performing Arts (formerly the Saidye Bronfman Centre), Crow’s Theatre, Manitoba Theatre Centre, Native Earth, Théâtre Lac Brome, and The National Arts Centre amongst others.

Notable performances include the title role in Richard III (Vancouver), Prospero in The Tempest (Montreal), Petruchio in Taming of the Shrew (Ottawa), Gollum in The Hobbit (Toronto), The Devil-dog in Peter Hinton’s otherwise all-female production of The Witch of Edmonton (Toronto) and a dying sailor in the Chalmers Award-winning Ditch (1994) by Geoff Kavanagh. Most recently, he appeared in SideMart’s The Haunted Hillbilly, for which he was nominated for a Best Actor MECCA award. In film and television, he was a regular on Forever Knight, Once a Thief, and The Neverending Story, as well as appearing in principal roles for such major films as 300, The Day After Tomorrow and the Bob Dylan biopic, I’m Not There. As well, his voice can be heard in the series, Arthur, Tripping the Rift and George and Martha.

Directorial highlights include Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the Segal Centre, Kit Brennan’s Tiger’s Heart at the Centaur, a documentary play, Seeds, at the Monument National, an updated version of Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest for TLB and Peter Weiss’ Marat ... Sade which was nominated for Toronto’s Dora award (Outstanding Production) in 1991. An accomplished magician, Greg has appeared in many cabarets and fundraisers – most recently he created and taught the magical effects for the Segal Centre’s production of Houdini.

As a playwright, his original produced plays include Lies of the Vampyre, Skateboard Tango, and Isadora Fabulist which was commissioned and produced by Imago Theatre in 2007. As a novelist, his first novel, The pursemonger of fugu, was shortlisted for the City of Toronto Book Award. Published by Riverbank Press, an imprint of Cormorant Books, his other works are Couchwarmer, Hogtown Bonbons, and Wally. He is currently working on The Cure, a medical dystopia, based on his experiences after having a lung removed due to cancer in 2004.

Greg Kramer is a member of Canadian Actors’ Equity Association, ACTRA, The Writers’ Union of Canada and the Society of American Magicians. He is listed in Canada’s Who’s Who, knits cable sweaters and can play a mean jazz piano.