Richard Klagsbrun

To really know Richard, you have to buy him at least 4 tequila shots within the span of an hour.

However, he is a writer whose work has appeared in diverse and different venues including The Walrus and National Post.

Richard has been credited by its founder as the inspiration, in a manner of speaking, for the creation of the innovative motion picture company Participant Media, which has, in a relatively brief time, produced a vast number of Academy Award nominated and winning films, such as The Help, Lincoln, Spotlight, Syriana, An Inconvenient Truth, and Good Night, and Good Luck.

.As one of the original group of executives at Participant, Richard was involved in the development of its first slate of films, which garnered a remarkable 11 Academy Award nominations in categories such as Best Picture and two for Best Screenplay. While at Participant, performing double duties as both a Creative Executive and Strategic Planning Executive, Richard conceived the organization's unique social action marketing model, which was used with tremendous success for its films, among which was An Inconvenient Truth, which became one of the most successful documentary films in history and was the catalyst for a huge social movement.

Subsequently, Richard finds all sorts of ways to get into mischief, including having co-founded a technological company, View2gether, along with former Sony Pictures President Jeff Sagansky, sometimes appearing in the media as a political and social commentator, occasional public speaking, and acting as a film, media, and political affairs consultant. He is on the Advisory Board of George Brown College's Screenwriting and Narrative Design Program. Now, Richard has turned his energy into writing a controversial play, AN UNSAFE SPACE, designed to stimulate conversations and to reiterate the need for the exchange of ideas, and for free speech and thought in public life and in the academy.