“Develop BC” Pilot Participants
Four screenwriters have been selected for the new Develop BC pilot program: Brad Wright, Jennica Harper, Ken Craw and Sonja Bennett will each lead a week’s development room staffed with emerging writers.
Supported with funding from Creative BC, the Develop BC pilot was launched by the PSP in late 2024. “Our goal is to support BC showrunners and emerging writers, while stimulating the development of BC-owned IP” says Camilla Tibbs, PSP’s Executive Director. “This initiative helps showrunners by investing in the early stages of project development, increasing their ability to demonstrate their series’ viability to buyers. At the same time, the program creates real-world work opportunities for emerging writers.”
The emerging writers participating in the development rooms will be Christopher Nash, Helene Taylor, Jackson Chow, Jordan Hall, Ken Kabatoff, Kim Senclip Harvey, Norman Yi Li, and Tammy Tsang.
In addition to funding from Creative BC for this initiative, the PSP is grateful to have in-kind support from Peliplat and the collaboration of the Writers Guild of Canada and the CMPA BC Producers Branch. This pilot project allows the PSP to explore the benefits of this program and learn from the experience of small-scale execution, prior to any larger roll-out.
Selected Showrunners
Brad Wright
Brad Wright is an award-winning Canadian writer/producer with over five hundred hours of television to his credit. He is best known as a co-creator of the television series Stargate Sg1, Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe, along with two other movies in the long-running franchise. More recently, he created and produced the hit Netflix series Travelers, starring Eric McCormack.
Wright was born in Toronto and graduated from the York University Theatre program in 1984. Before the inception of the Stargate franchise, he served as co-executive producer and writer of The Outer Limits for several seasons. He was also co-producer and executive story editor for Neon Rider, and has written for numerous television series, including The Black Stallion, The Odyssey and Highlander, among many others. Prior to his television career, Wright worked for several years touring with a Toronto theatre company as an actor and playwright.
Jennica Harper
Jennica Harper was Co-Showrunner for Season 3 of CBC’s Run the Burbs. Before that, she was Showrunner and Co-creator of the award-winning comedy series JANN (CTV/Hulu) starring Jann Arden, which ran for three seasons and a holiday special. Other writer/producer credits include medical adventure drama SkyMed (Paramount+/CBC), light mystery The Spencer Sisters (CTV/CW), horror-comedy The Order (Netflix), acclaimed thriller Cardinal (CTV/Hulu), and police drama Motive (CTV), among others. Jennica is part of the season two development team for crime drama Murder in a Small Town (Fox/Global.) Jennica has been nominated for numerous Canadian Screen Awards, and has won two WGC Awards for best script.
Ken Craw
Ken is a Writer/Co-Executive Producer on the Corus/CW series Family Law as well as Writer/Co-Executive Producer on the long-running CBC and Netflix ratings/views hit Heartland, yielding him multiple award nominations. He was also the showrunner on the CBC Gem series Hudson, has written for the successful series Sullivan’s Crossing, When Calls the Heart, Cedar Cove and the critically acclaimed CTV dramedy series Robson Arms. In addition to Ken’s work in scripted drama he is also a Canadian Screen Award-winning documentary-maker (Ben Johnson, Drugs & the Quest For Gold, Girls Don’t Fight, Chasing the Tango High).
Sonja Bennett
Sonja made her writing debut with the feature film, Preggoland. The film premiered as a special presentation at TIFF and had a world-wide theatrical release. For television, Sonja has written on several shows including Kim’s Convenience for CBC (Leo win for best screenwriting in a comedy), Letterkenny for Crave/Hulu (Nominated for a WGC award for best screenwriting in a comedy, three-time Leo winner for best screenwriting in a comedy), Ghost Wars, Hudson and Rex, The Murders and Family Law for Global/CW (Nominated for a WGC award for best screenwriting in a drama, three-time nominee and one time winner of the Leo for best screenwriting in a drama).
As a playwright, Sonja co-created Motherload for the Cultch. In 2021, she adapted Alice in Wonderland into a pantomime. In 2023, she adapted The Little Mermaid. It had a seven-week sold out run at the York Theatre.