Empire of the Son

Tetsuro Shigematsu (born 1971) is a Canadian playwright, actor, comedian, filmmaker, and radio broadcaster. He hosted CBC Radio One's 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 completed its final episode on November 4, 2005. Before working for CBC Radio, Shigematsu wrote for the Canadian comedy show This Hour Has 22 Minutes and was involved in a number of other CBC-TV shows, including Madly Off in All Directions and Pass the Mic. He currently writes for the Huffington Post and serves as president of Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre. Although Shigematsu’s parents were both born in Japan, his father in Kagoshima and his mother in Osaka, they relocated to London in the 1960s, where his father worked for the BBC, and where Tetsuro and his four siblings were born before relocating to Canada. Shigematsu studied in Montreal, completing a BFA at Concordia University. He has just defended a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. In 1991, at age nineteen, Shigematsu became the youngest playwright to compete in the history of the Quebec Drama Festival. Previous plays include the one-man show Rising Son (performed 1993 to 1996).