Adam Kelly
Encyclopedia
Adam Kelly is a Canadian actor, writer, producer and teacher.
district of Montreal
, Kelly grew up in Pierrefonds
.
He first began stage acting while attending John Rennie High School
, where he met future collaborators Donovan King
and Tetsuro Shigematsu
. Electing to pursue health science at John Abbott College
and then biology at Concordia University
, Kelly continued performing, co-founding the Wahoo Family Theatre Company with Donovan King and with future sketch comedy partner Matthew Legault.
Having completed his Bachelor of Science degree in 1995, Kelly returned to Concordia in 1996 to begin his formal actor training in Theatre Performance, (working alongside future singer-songwriters Pierre Gage
and Martha Wainwright
.) While attending Concordia, he was invited by former classmate Tetsuro Shitematsu to play in his feature film Yellow Fellas. Kelly also appeared in Canada: A People's History
as a boisterous, Irish supporter of Daniel Tracey
.
In 1999 Kelly was accepted into the Master of Fine Arts Acting program at York University
, Toronto
. There, he performed in a workshop production of Colleen Murphy's The Piper (with future film star Rachel McAdams
) and studied under David Rotenberg, David Smukler and Dean Gilmour, among others. As a second year thesis assignment, Kelly created a play that would eventually become The Anorak
, his critically acclaimed one-man-show about the École Polytechnique massacre
and the life and death of Marc Lépine
.
. The play received unenthusiastic reviews. After workshop productions of his play The Anorak at York, and at Queen's University
, Kelly returned home.
After making its Montreal debut at Zeke's Gallery and subsequent performances at McGill University
, The Anorak
was received with controversy in Montreal, particularly in the French-language media. However, critics received the play with favorable reviews
bestowing it a Montreal English Critic's Circle Award (MECCA). Kelly was then commissioned by CBC Radio
for a national radio documentary on The Current
. The play was performed by Kelly in the CBC studios, and the performance was listened to by Sylvie Haviernick, sister of Maud, who was killed in the massacre. Her reaction to the play was supportive.
After seeing his play in 2006, actress Karine Vanasse
and Maxime Rémillard of Remstar Productions recruited Kelly to collaborate with director Denis Villeneuve
on his film Polytechnique, released in 2009.
For the 20th anniversary of the massacre, Kelly performed for the first time in a French version of the play (translated by Geneviève Charbonneau) at Université de Montréal
. The French-language debut took place in 2008 at Université Laval
.
In 2005, Kelly co-founded the Dancing Cock Brothers comedy troupe, who would make several Fringe Festival and other live appearances to mixed reviews. The DCBs also made a cameo in the comedy documentary film Let's All Hate Toronto
directed by Albert Nerenberg
.
Turning to web film production, Kelly was executive producer of Montreal Hearts, a comedy-drama web series nominated for an Indie Soap Award (Fan's Choice) and named on Funny or Die
for their Best Videos of 2010. He also acted in the series.
As a writer, Kelly was first published in (Cult)ure Magazine where he revealed his struggles with alcoholism. Kelly has written articles for Rover Arts Magazine and for Encore Literary Magazine.
Kelly resides in Montreal, where he teaches acting and film production at I.O. Acting Studio.
Background
Born in the Notre-Dame-de-GrâceNotre-Dame-de-Grâce
Notre-Dame-de-Grâce , also nicknamed NDG, is a residential neighbourhood of Montreal located in the city's west-end. It is one of five districts of the borough of Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce...
district of Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, Kelly grew up in Pierrefonds
Pierrefonds-Roxboro
Pierrefonds-Roxboro is a borough of the city of Montreal. It is composed of the former municipalities of Pierrefonds and Roxboro, spanning the northern part of the West Island...
.
He first began stage acting while attending John Rennie High School
John Rennie High School
John Rennie High School , located in Pointe-Claire, Quebec, Canada, is an English language secondary school which opened in 1955. The school was named after Hon. John Rennie, , the Union Nationale Member of the National Assembly for Huntingdon from 1947 to 1952...
, where he met future collaborators Donovan King
Donovan King
Donovan King is a performance activist and experimental theatre artist from Montreal, Canada who juggles acting, teaching, directing, dramaturgy, and theory, and is a columnist for Indie Theatre Times and Review.-Background:...
and Tetsuro Shigematsu
Tetsuro Shigematsu
Tetsuro Shigematsu is a Canadian radio broadcaster, comedian and filmmaker. He was the most recent host of CBC Radio One's former afternoon series The Roundup, where he replaced Bill Richardson in 2004, making him the first visible minority to host a daily network radio program in Canada. The show...
. Electing to pursue health science at John Abbott College
John Abbott College
John Abbott College is an English-language general and professional educational college located in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec, Canada, near the western tip of the Island of Montreal. The enabling legislation is the General and Vocational Colleges Act -History:The college was accredited in...
and then biology at Concordia University
Concordia University
Concordia University is a comprehensive Canadian public university located in Montreal, Quebec, one of the two universities in the city where English is the primary language of instruction...
, Kelly continued performing, co-founding the Wahoo Family Theatre Company with Donovan King and with future sketch comedy partner Matthew Legault.
Having completed his Bachelor of Science degree in 1995, Kelly returned to Concordia in 1996 to begin his formal actor training in Theatre Performance, (working alongside future singer-songwriters Pierre Gage
Pierre Gage
Pierre Gage , known by his last name Gage, is a Francophone Canadian singer/songwriter of Jamaican and Haitian ancestry.- Biography :...
and Martha Wainwright
Martha Wainwright
Martha Wainwright is a Canadian-American folk-rock singer-songwriter. She is the daughter of American folk singer and actor Loudon Wainwright III and Canadian folk singer-songwriter Kate McGarrigle...
.) While attending Concordia, he was invited by former classmate Tetsuro Shitematsu to play in his feature film Yellow Fellas. Kelly also appeared in Canada: A People's History
Canada: A People's History
Canada: A People's History is a 17-episode, 32-hour documentary television series on the history of Canada. It first aired on CBC Television from October 2000 to November 2001. The production was an unusually large project for the national network, especially during budget cutbacks. The unexpected...
as a boisterous, Irish supporter of Daniel Tracey
Daniel Tracey
Daniel Tracey born in Roscrea, Tipperary County, Ireland, was a doctor, journalist and Canadian politician.He arrived in the Province of Lower Canada with his younger siblings in 1825.-The Vindicator:...
.
In 1999 Kelly was accepted into the Master of Fine Arts Acting program at York University
York University
York University is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, Ontario's second-largest graduate school, and Canada's leading interdisciplinary university....
, Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
. There, he performed in a workshop production of Colleen Murphy's The Piper (with future film star Rachel McAdams
Rachel McAdams
Rachel Anne McAdams is a Canadian actress. After graduating from a theatre program at York University, Toronto in 2001, she worked steadily as an actress until finding fame in 2004 with starring roles in teen comedy Mean Girls and romantic drama The Notebook...
) and studied under David Rotenberg, David Smukler and Dean Gilmour, among others. As a second year thesis assignment, Kelly created a play that would eventually become The Anorak
The Anorak
The Anorak is a play about the École Polytechnique massacre and the life and death of Marc Lépine written by Adam Kelly. The play is a 90 minute dramatic monologue told from the killer's point of view. In the performances, audience members are separated between men and women, with the actor...
, his critically acclaimed one-man-show about the École Polytechnique massacre
École Polytechnique massacre
The École Polytechnique Massacre, also known as the Montreal Massacre, was a hate crime perpetrated on December 6, 1989 at the École Polytechnique in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Twenty-five-year-old Gamil Rodrigue Liass Gharbi, who had changed his name to Marc Lépine, armed with a legally obtained...
and the life and death of Marc Lépine
Marc Lépine
Marc Lépine was a 25-year-old man from Montreal, Canada who murdered fourteen women and wounded ten women and four men at the École Polytechnique, an engineering school affiliated with the Université de Montréal, in the "École Polytechnique massacre", also known as the "Montreal Massacre".Lépine...
.
Career
Upon completion of his M.FA in Acting, Kelly was given the title role in Necessary Angel's main-stage production of The Piper at the Factory TheatreFactory Theatre
Factory Theatre is a theatre in Toronto, Ontario, founded as Factory Theatre Lab in 1970 by Ken Gass and Frank Trotz.Factory was the first theatre to announce that it would exclusively produce Canadian plays, but it soon became a widely emulated policy by other theatre companies...
. The play received unenthusiastic reviews. After workshop productions of his play The Anorak at York, and at Queen's University
Queen's University
Queen's University, , is a public research university located in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Founded on 16 October 1841, the university pre-dates the founding of Canada by 26 years. Queen's holds more more than of land throughout Ontario as well as Herstmonceux Castle in East Sussex, England...
, Kelly returned home.
After making its Montreal debut at Zeke's Gallery and subsequent performances at McGill University
McGill University
Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...
, The Anorak
The Anorak
The Anorak is a play about the École Polytechnique massacre and the life and death of Marc Lépine written by Adam Kelly. The play is a 90 minute dramatic monologue told from the killer's point of view. In the performances, audience members are separated between men and women, with the actor...
was received with controversy in Montreal, particularly in the French-language media. However, critics received the play with favorable reviews
bestowing it a Montreal English Critic's Circle Award (MECCA). Kelly was then commissioned by CBC Radio
CBC Radio
CBC Radio generally refers to the English-language radio operations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC operates a number of radio networks serving different audiences and programming niches, all of which are outlined below.-English:CBC Radio operates three English language...
for a national radio documentary on The Current
The Current (radio program)
The Current is a Canadian current affairs radio program, hosted by investigative reporter Anna Maria Tremonti on CBC Radio One. It airs weekdays starting at 8:37 a.m. local time and runs until 10 a.m. for most of the year, although during the summer the program airs until 9:30 a.m...
. The play was performed by Kelly in the CBC studios, and the performance was listened to by Sylvie Haviernick, sister of Maud, who was killed in the massacre. Her reaction to the play was supportive.
After seeing his play in 2006, actress Karine Vanasse
Karine Vanasse
Karine Vanasse is a French Canadian actress. She currently appears in the role of Colette in the ABC TV series Pan Am. Vanasse is the daughter of council worker Conrad Vanasse and Renée Gamache, who was her manager at the beginning of her career.-Life and career:Vanasse was born in Drummondville,...
and Maxime Rémillard of Remstar Productions recruited Kelly to collaborate with director Denis Villeneuve
Denis Villeneuve
Denis Villeneuve is a Canadian film director and writer. In his early career he won Radio-Canada's youth film competition "La Course Europe-Asie" in 1990-91. He is a three-time winner of the Genie Award for Best Director, for Maelström in 2001, Polytechnique in 2010 and Incendies in 2011...
on his film Polytechnique, released in 2009.
For the 20th anniversary of the massacre, Kelly performed for the first time in a French version of the play (translated by Geneviève Charbonneau) at Université de Montréal
Université de Montréal
The Université de Montréal is a public francophone research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It comprises thirteen faculties, more than sixty departments and two affiliated schools: the École Polytechnique and HEC Montréal...
. The French-language debut took place in 2008 at Université Laval
Université Laval
Laval University is the oldest centre of education in Canada and was the first institution in North America to offer higher education in French...
.
In 2005, Kelly co-founded the Dancing Cock Brothers comedy troupe, who would make several Fringe Festival and other live appearances to mixed reviews. The DCBs also made a cameo in the comedy documentary film Let's All Hate Toronto
Let's All Hate Toronto
Let's All Hate Toronto is a 2007 Canadian documentary film co-directed by independent documentarian Albert Nerenberg and Rob Spence. The documentary is a comedic examination of the reasons why everyone in Canada seems to hate Toronto...
directed by Albert Nerenberg
Albert Nerenberg
Albert Nerenberg is a Canadian independent filmmaker, actor, journalist, and laughologist. His films include Stupidity , Escape to Canada , Let's All Hate Toronto , and Laughology...
.
Turning to web film production, Kelly was executive producer of Montreal Hearts, a comedy-drama web series nominated for an Indie Soap Award (Fan's Choice) and named on Funny or Die
Funny or Die
Funny or Die is a comedy video website founded by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay's production company, Gary Sanchez Productions with original and user-generated content. Funny or Die contains exclusive material from a number of famous contributors and also has its own Funny or Die Team, which creates...
for their Best Videos of 2010. He also acted in the series.
As a writer, Kelly was first published in (Cult)ure Magazine where he revealed his struggles with alcoholism. Kelly has written articles for Rover Arts Magazine and for Encore Literary Magazine.
Kelly resides in Montreal, where he teaches acting and film production at I.O. Acting Studio.