A year ago, Playback asked talent agencies across the country to pick their best bets as to hot, up-and-coming writers, directors and actors. Our crystal ball must have been working when we picked out those we thought would distinguish themselves: in the 12 months since, many have gone on to high-profile jobs.

Among the directors profiled in last year’s report was Jeremy Podeswa, winner of the 1999 Genie for achievement in direction for The Five Senses, beating out the likes of David Cronenberg and Atom Egoyan with only his second project. Since then Podeswa has inked a first-look deal with Alliance Atlantis Communications for projects he may write, direct or produce in the future. He also has a new project in the works, Wild Geese, set to shoot in Alberta.

Another ’99 report alum, Reg Harkema, had his first directorial work, A Girl is A Girl recognized with Leo nominations for best picture and best director.

Three writers featured in’99 have gone on to high-profile series work: Vanz Chapman and Dennise Fordham on Drop The Beat and Laura Kosterski on the animated Anne of Green Gables.

And among the actors featured last year, Chris Martin will be familiar to viewers of teen soap Felicity as the heroine’s short-lived love interest.

Once again, Playback casts its talent net and profiles some of the rising talent we think are the ones to watch.

WRITERS

*Michele Adams

‘In the summer of ’96, I was indulging in a favorite ritual, rereading Jane Austen,’ says Michele Adams, a rising screenwriter working out of Vancouver. ‘I was particularly struck by Lady Susan, Austen’s little-known first novel. ‘Til then, my writing was mostly fiction and poetry, but I got interested in doing something with Lady Susan to bring this intriguing creation to a wider audience,’ Adams says.

By early 1998, Adams had a first draft and sent it out to a producer who was a ‘friend of a friend’. The script was rejected, but Adams did not give up. She sent Lady S to Dacia Moss, an agent with Lucas Talent in Vancouver. Moss read the script, gave Adams some feedback, and suggested she send the script into the Praxis Screenwriting Competition.

‘Lady S was one of the winners and I guess that was my big break,’ Adams says. After workshopping the project in the spring of ’99, ‘it was optioned by Minds Eye Pictures [in Regina] that fall.’

By that time, Adams was hooked. ‘I had the bug and I was onto my second screenplay, Fat Girl.’

With Fat Girl, Adams got to take the screenwriting process a step further.

‘I spent three days kind of holed up in the place with the story editor (Maureen Dorey) and we worked eight hours a day on my script. She was amazing. [We analysed] the characters and the stories one after the other. It was very educational and interesting to look at it in that structural way.’

The relationship with Moss paid off for Adams as well. She earned representation with Moss and Lucas Talent. In the meantime, Adams continues to write screenplays while supplementing her income with freelance writing jobs of all sorts. Given her thoughtful, solitary profession, Adams has some time to fantasize.

‘I guess, if I had my total fantasy, I would like to have a balance between screenwriting and fiction writing and kind of move back and forth. I find them quite complementary,’ she says. Dave Lazar

*Ryan Leigh

For YTV contract writer Ryan Leigh, television writing is like the luge: hurtling down a slippery slope, barely in control, only to finally slide into a finish line covered in ice. In fact, Leigh claims to be training for the Canadian Olympic luge team. A rare hobby for a creative writer.

Leigh got started writing for television in 1996. At the time, he was driving a tractor (dreaming of the luge) for the Scarborough Board of Education. With training in television writing from Ryerson’s Radio and Television Arts program, he was approached by a former classmate to join him at ytv where they were looking for a researcher on The Anti-Gravity Room, a popular series about comic books.

Leigh stayed on at The Anti-Gravity Room for a year before being asked if he would like to try his hand at writing for the show. Since then, Leigh’s stock has risen tremendously. Only a year and a half into his career as a screenwriter, he was nominated for a Gemini Award for an episode he had written for the program. The 1997 nomination came as a shock to the twentysomething writer.

‘It was nominated for best writing in an information series,’ Leigh begins. ‘And I was up against [the writers of] W5 and I think the fifth estate as well. And my nomination was for The Anti-Gravity Room. It was a little bit like Barney takes on 60 Minutes. We really didn’t think we would win, but it was really cool to be nominated. It was very strange,’ Leigh says.

‘It was odd,’ he continues. ‘I’d only been writing for a year and a half, two years. And I’d always thought [a Gemini nomination] would be something I would aspire to later in life. Like it would be a huge event. And then it happened right then. So I was really shocked.’

With this life goal taken care of, Leigh can turn his attention to his current obsession – luge. ‘Always luge,’ he says.

Leigh has since written for other ytv shows such as Warp and his current contract, Gamers. He has also done some writing for tvontario. Leigh is pleased that at ytv he has been able to write for such celebrities as Ben Stiller, Janeane Garofalo and George Takei of Star Trek fame.

Despite his early career successes, Leigh does not have a writing agent, something he finds ‘pretty intimidating’. However, he is still looking for representation and looks forward to tapping into ‘someone who’s already hooked into a network.’ Dave Lazar

*Michael MacLennan

Michael MacLennan has several projects on the go at all times. Originally a playwright, he says, ‘I realized my grant luck was about to run out and I really wanted to get into film and television. The more I knew about what it was like to work in tv, the more I liked.’

He says the transition was not an easy one, but he got his first break on Wind at My Back.

Since then he has worked as story editor for Wind and executive story editor of Anne of Green Gables and now has an associate producer’s credit to his name with the soon-to-be released bbc/Sullivan coprod, Rupert Patterson, Superhero, about a comic-obsessed ‘nerd’ boy who ‘sees himself as a bit of a superhero.’

Even more prolific is MacLennan’s film work. His script The Ice Men, which he describes as ‘The Company of Men meets The Big Chill,’ is in post-production.

One project he has in development, A Far Cry, which already has Vancouver’s Keatley MacLeod Productions aboard, is something he put together himself. The film will tell the story of Kobe ter Neuzen – a Vancouver woman who contracted hiv in the early ’80s through a sperm donation.

‘It’s a story about how the virus throws her into a new world and totally transforms her life. She ended up finding a ‘family’ and one of them turned out to be the man who indirectly infected her.’

Another project in the works, Switch, this time with producer Armstrong Production on board, is described as ‘Tootsie meets Serpico.’

He is also currently working on a play called Charles and Charles (‘about whether beauty can survive in the modern age’), which has the distinction of being the first play commissioned by the Shaw Festival. ‘Up until this year, the brief has been to do plays written in [Shaw’s] lifetime. Starting this year, they’re looking at plays set in that era.’

Oh, and he spent most of April working on retooling the dialogue for stage musical Swingstep.

‘I wouldn’t say I’m a workaholic – I love to write. I love to write and I have a hard time saying no to things. I love a good idea.’ Fiona MacDonald

*Jeff Szpirglas

Ask how he got to where he is right now and Jeff Szpirglas will tell you he banged on a lot of doors.

That would explain how the recent film school graduate (York ’99) comes to have such a body of work already.

His writing work stretches back to 1998, when while still in school he penned an episode of Polka Dot Shorts. The following year, once again on top of classes and study, he worked on the children’s series Ricky’s Room, a gig he found in an ad asking for writers willing to work for minimal payment. His most recent television writing job, this time for the children’s series System Crash, came his way partly through a slot Szpirglas won on the national apprentice training program run through the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television.

And this year started with Szpirglas winning the York University President’s Prize for his screenplay Maxtible Escapes! (‘about an arrogant, stuck-up lobster who escapes and goes searching for the ocean’). Clearly writing is where the film graduate’s interests lie.

‘I tried my hand at production and I hated it – all the flashing lights and knobs and buttons. And I loved writing, that’s even what I did in high school, 10-page stories on foolscap involving myself and my friends. And when I realized I hated the technical I went back to writing and York kept giving me money and awards for it. Writing is something I’m good at, I can safely admit that now.’

The 23-year-old (24 in August) can also safely admit the year since graduation has been a good one.

‘I didn’t get a day job. I set these goals for myself.’ Fiona MacDonald