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Biography
RICHARD OUZOUNIAN Biography
September, 2004
RICHARD OUZOUNIAN, Theatre Critic of the Toronto STAR, since June, 2000, has worked professionally in the Performing Arts for the past 32 years.
In that time, he has written, directed, or acted in over 225 productions, served as Artistic Director of 5 major Canadian theatres, been an Associate Director of the Stratford Festival of Canada for four seasons, and worked as Harold Prince's assistant on the original Toronto production of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA.
From January, 1990 through June, 2004 he was the host of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's popular musical theatre program SAY IT WITH MUSIC which was heard every Sunday on Radio 2 across Canada and world-wide on the internet.
From 1995-2000, he was Creative Head of Arts at TVOntario, Canada's largest educational broadcaster, where his duties include hosting the arts interview series, DIALOGUE, and Executive Producing the three-time Gemini-nominated book series IMPRINT.
Richard also served as producer/host/interviewer for CBC Television on a 13-part series about the 50 year history of the Stratford Festival called STRATFORD GOLD, which aired in the summer of 2002 and was published simultaneously in book form by McArthur & Company.
In the summer of 2003, McArthur & Company also published a collection of the celebrity interviews he has conducted since joining the Toronto Star. Its title is ARE YOU TRYING TO SEDUCE ME, MISS TURNER? A second volume, DIVAS, DUDES AND BROADWAY BABIES is due in the spring of 2005.
The summer of 1999 found two of Canada's major theatre festivals producing new musicals he had written with his longtime collaborator, Marek Norman: DRACULA ran to record houses at the Stratford Festival for six months, was later televised for international sale, and won a Gemini award for its leading actor, Juan Chioran. (It received its American premiere at the North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly, Massachusetts in October, 2002, and was seen at the Charlottetown Festival in the summer of 2003.)
EMILY (based on the books by Lucy Maud Montgomery) was the largest hit in fifteen years for the Charlottetown Festival of Prince Edward Island, and returned for a second season in 2000. Selections from it were featured in the 2004 Charlottetown revue, SOMETHING WONDERFUL
His musical version of Pulitzer Prize winning author Carol Shields' novel, LARRY'S PARTY, commissioned by the Canadian Stage Company of Toronto, starred Brent Carver and broke box office records for CanStage before enjoying equally successful runs in Ottawa and Winnipeg as well as being nominated for a Dora Award for Best New Musical. The scripts to DRACULA, EMILY and LARRYıS PARTY have also been published by McArthur & Company.
Mr. Ouzounian is an award-winning journalist whose work has been seen in every major Canadian publication and a much-in-demand public speaker from coast to coast. He served as President of the Board of the Arts Foundation of Toronto from 1996-1998.
He has also taught and/or directed at the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, the University of Winnipeg, Dalhousie University, George Brown College and Sheridan College.
He was born in New York City in 1950, received his B.A. in English Literature from Fordham University (1970), and did his M.A. studies in Theatre and Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia (1972).
He has been married since 1977 and he and his wife, Pamela have two children: Katherine and Michael.
He can be reached at: rouzounian@sympatico.ca
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