Our Story
Murray Foster & Kieren MacMillan were (and are) music-loving, beat-up-as-a-kid, Dungeons-and-Dragons-playing nerds, and in their first-ever collaboration it’s only fitting that they created a show set in the “Nerdverse” of high school nerds, geeks, dorks, and dweebs. At the forefront of this story are four brainy teenage girls - Sammy, Rosie, Taylor and Frankie - who must face their fears and discover the true meaning of friendship.
Murray Foster
Murray Foster is a Juno-nominated songwriter, producer, and performer with songwriting credits on multiple certified gold and platinum recordings. He's best known for his role in two legendary Canadian bands: In Moxy Früvous, Murray released several gold and platinum records (selling half a million copies) and opened for songwriting legends like Bob Dylan. In Great Big Sea, Murray recorded five albums and toured extensively throughout North America and Europe, while also writing the title track for 2010's "Safe Upon The Shore".
In 2014, Murray wrote, directed and scored his first feature film, "The Cocksure Lads Movie." It premiered at the Whistler Film Festival, and was released in theatres across Canada. The film is still available on Crave or Starz in Canada, or on digital providers like Amazon Prime and Google Play. He also wrote the song "Lay Me Down" for Fortunate Ones, which won a SOCAN #1 award in 2015.
Murray has recently turned his focus to writing musical theatre. In 2017, Murray was invited to adapt "The Cocksure Lads Movie" into a musical through Sheridan College’s "Canadian Musical Theatre Project." Renamed "Chelsea Sunrise," the well-regarded show was workshopped at Sheridan College, Millikin University, and as an Off-Sheridan presentation at Theatre Passe Muraille. In 2018 he was invited to take part in Eclipse Theatre Company's week-long writing intensive, where he met his Quest co-writer Kieren MacMillan.
In addition to musical theatre, Murray is the founder of Toronto Songwriting School, a songwriting professor at Seneca College, and president of The Urban Orchestra.
Kieren MacMillan
As a composer and arranger, Kieren MacMillan is regularly commissioned by artists and organizations around the world. His catalogue includes musicals, chamber operas, film and theatre scores, pieces for solo instruments and ensembles, vocal and choral works, spoken word compositions, and concert-length multidisciplinary works. Many of these have received feature performances at international music conventions and festivals, as well as broadcasts on national, regional, and internet radio. Numerous recordings are currently available on compact disc or for digital download.
Kieren’s musical dramas — seen by thousands of people throughout Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom — have been called “brilliant” (Mark Kanny, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review), “a new kind of musical theater…smart and moving” (Andy Druckenbrod, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette), and “a new, stunning body of story and sound, that left me deeply satisfied and piqued” (Sequenza21). In additional to being perennial audience favourites, these works have garnered many critical awards, including Outstanding New Play and Outstanding Production for Young Audiences (NOW Magazine), Top Ten Concerts in Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 2006 and 2008), and a Total Theatre Award nomination (Total Theatre Edinburgh).
Kieren received his B.Mus. at the University of British Columbia, and his M.Mus. from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, where he studied with Paul Cooper and Samuel Jones. He now lives in Toronto with his wife Lada Darewych, and their two children Marianna and Theodore.
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