Leif Oleson-Cormack

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Dead Peasants 

Purchase Online: Samuel French / Amazon

A worker dies suspiciously while cleaning augers at an animal food pellet factory, bringing two years of intricately tangled relationships to light. Davey—a naïve aspiring tattoo artist with romantic feelings for the dead man’s wife—pleads his innocence despite being the only worker present during the accident. The factory owners--a pair of estranged brothers feuding over their late father's estate--are only concerned with how this incident will interfere with their plans to sell the struggling factory. Meanwhile, the dead man’s wife, Grace, finds herself relieved to have finally escaped the tulmultuous relationship she has been trapped in for years. Moving back and forth in time to reveal how their respective stories converge, Dead Peasants is a darkly comic thriller that examines greed, dependency and culpability in a desolate prairie town.

Winner of the 2012 Samuel French Canadian Playwrights Contest

Winner of the 2011 Alberta Playwrights Network National Exchange

Meat Puppet

"Meat Puppet is a provocative play and Oleson-Cormack is clearly a gifted playwright. He has a knack for capturing the nuances of casual conversation and is adept at creating multi-layered stories." – Mel Priestley, Vue Weekly

Synopsis:
Chuck Dalmer is an investigative telejournalist with a mission. His once popular expose series, “Red Letter”, specializes in running sophisticated sting operations to catch child predators soliciting minors online. And now Dalmer has uncovered his highest profile target yet: a disgraced film actor. “Red Letter” secretly sets up their cameras across the street and anxiously waits to nab the prey and win some rating points.

In a race to avoid being scooped by a teenage YouTube sensation, Dalmer and his producer struggle to push the show forward in time for live broadcast- no matter the cost or the lives that are affected. Truth and fiction, reality and reality TV all intertwine in this uncompromising look at today's media.

Production Details:
Meat Puppet, a Northern Light Theatre/Shadow Theatre co-production was first presented at the Varscona Theatre, Edmonton, Alberta, from January 19-February 6th, 2011. The cast was as follows:

CHUCK DALMER               John Hudson

DEB JOHNSRUDE              April Banigan

CLAY JAMESON                 Cody Ray

MARCIA JAMESON            Sharla Matkin

Directed and set designed by Trevor Schmidt, Lighting designed by Adam Tsuyoshi Turnball, Sound design by Darrin Hagen, Stage managed by Coralie Cairns, Production managed by Bobby Smale