Steven Mccarthy is an award-winning actor, musician, theatre and filmmaker whose work has been seen across Canada and around the world.
In 2009 Steven founded Candles are for Burning, a production company dedicated to making rock 'n roll like it's theatre, and theatre like it's rock 'n roll. Revisited, a play he co-created, toured nationally and internationally to great acclaim and garnered awards nationwide including Best Actor for Steven's performance, best production of the year, and top ten productions of the year nods in NOW Magazine and the Globe and Mail. After graduating from the prestigious National Theatre School as the sole student in a special one year version of their directing programme, Steven went on to create a series of genre-bending productions and in 2010 he was awarded the Best Director Award for his production of Bliss at the Summerworks festival. Notable works include directing and designing a guerrilla theatre treatment of Sam Shepard's Fool for Love in a downtown art gallery, writing a new adaptation of La Ronde with acclaimed poet Evie Christie for the National Theatre School, co-creating the trapeze dance piece Malaria Lullaby, translating the hit quebecois play 5 Visages pour Camille Brunelle, directing the Toronto premiere of Neil Labute's Reasons to be Pretty and starring in Necessary Angel's controversial Andromache, a world premiere at the LuminaTO Festival. His production of Boblo, featuring a 6-piece band and the music of The Sunparlour Players' Andrew Penner, enjoyed a sold-out run at the Theatre Centre and went on to win multiple awards at last years Dora Awards. His recent music-theatre multi-media hybrid, Maylee Todd's Musical Planetarium, was the highest attended show in the history of the Summerworks music series.
The ElastoCitizens, the 10-piece funk rock band for which Steven is the lead singer and co-founder, released their second disc, Ep, to coincide with the premiere of their feature film Picture Day at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival. Their dazzling, high-energy stage-shows have made them a cult favourite on the Toronto music scene where they regularly pack venues such as Lee's Palace and The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern. Steven's newest project, Monster, is a dance-punk 4-piece band in the tradition of Death from Above or LCD soundsystem. He also hosts a regular singer-songwriter residency which features some of his more intimate music.
Steven continues to play leading roles in films for Miramax, Dreamworks, and Columbia Tri-Star and his most recent film, Kate Melville's award-winning Picture Day opened to great acclaim at 2012's Toronto International Film Festival. He played a recurring role in Oscar-winning director, Guillermo del Toro's new television series, The Strain and plays a leading role alongside Christine Lahti and Jason Ritter in Andrew Currie's newest feature, The Steps. He recently completed production on his first short film, "o negative" a darkly erotic meditation on the vampire myth which he wrote and directed and in which he stars alongside Alyx Melone.
