About Me
ONE-LINE:
One of Canada’s pioneering multimedia artists, with a 20+ year career as a playwright, sketch comic, actor and computer geek/video filmmaker. (This was my intro when I was a guest judge at a dog show; how could I not use it?)
MULTI-LINE:
Simon Fraser has been producing mass media since 1986 when he and a friend convinced a public access TV station in Ottawa to let them produce their own sketch comedy TV show.
Simon is currently in production on Season 2 of documentary web series Canadian Comedy.
In 2010, he directed and edited the improvised short Phone Call to an Ex-girlfriend.
In 2009, he co-wrote, co-produced and co-directed the sitcom-style short Stay At Home Dan. He also directed and edited the improvised short The War at Home. In March of that year, he created and co-produced The IMPROVideo Project, a screening of improvised narrative shorts.
Season 1 of Simon’s documentary web series, Canadian Comedy, premiered in 2009 on the Canadian Comedy Awards’ YouTube channel. For the Canadian Comedy Awards, Simon produced and directed the 2009 Nominee Announcements and the 2009 Web Promo, both available for viewing on the CCA YouTube channel.
In 2008, Simon edited and directed the improvised narrative short Wish You Were Here and directed a 90-second intro video for the stage play Viva Vivi!, for which he also supplied live foley. The previous year, he wrote and directed the short Hair of the Dog, which premiered at the Revue Cinema in January 2008, and co-wrote and directed the short The Cleanse, which premiered at the Bloor Cinema in October 2007.
In 1992, Simon wrote and acted in the short film Overnight Success. He later co-wrote the shorts Beat the Blue (2001) and Zero (2003) and, for director Ash Baron Cohen, the feature film screenplay “The Second Coming”.
For Internet consumption, Simon created, wrote and directed the web series GO Moonbase (2007-2008). Previously, he was the editor of international online culture e-zine NOVA (1999-2003).
Upon moving to Toronto at the age of eighteen, Simon dived head first into the world of improvisation and sketch comedy. He twice toured Canada, writing and performing in the revues “The Punch and Judas Show” (1991) and “Where The Hell is Delaware Water Gap?” (1993). As one half of the comedy duo Joe’s Convenience, he wrote and performed for the Just For Laughs Festival (1995, 1997), CBC TV’s “Comics!” (1996) and CBC Radio’s comedy serial “The Gig” (1999).
Simon has written two plays – “Three Guys In A Lifeboat On Acid” (1992) which ran at the Alumnae Theatre’s New Ideas Festival, and “Party Animals” (2003) which played at the Second City’s Tim Sims Playhouse – and co-directed Dogtooth Theatre Group’s “Jocular Digressions from the Bughouse Mezzanine” (2004). In 2006, he was music supervisor for the one-woman show “Kathryn, Starring As Herself At Last”.
As an actor, Simon appeared for three seasons on the Epitome Pictures/CBC-TV soap opera Riverdale (1996-1999) and voiced the lead role in the animated short Hyperhelion (2001).
When arriving in Las Vegas, Simon’s first drink is always a bourbon sour. He has been computer-friendly since 1982.