Tetsuro Shigematsu
Arts Actor Film Media Arts Theatre Person Prominent
Tetsuro Shigematsu is a Canadian radio broadcaster, comedian and filmmaker. He was the most recent host of CBC Radio One's former afternoon series The Roundup, where he replaced Bill Richardson in 2004. The show completed its final episode on November 4, 2005. Prior to working for CBC Radio, he was a writer for the Canadian TV show This Hour Has 22 Minutes.
Shigematsu was born in London, England in 1971. His family emigrated to Canada in 1974. He grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia and studied in Montreal. He has a BFA from Concordia University.
In 1991, at the age of 19, Shigematsu became the youngest playwright to compete in the history of the Quebec Drama Festival.
From 1993 to 1996, Shigematsu wrote and performed his one-man show Rising Son in Montreal, Boston, Los Angeles, and Tokyo. In 1994, Tetsuro studied poetry with Allen Ginsberg. He then spent the following two years in Japan, where he studied Butoh dance with the founding master, Kazu Ohno in Yokohama, Japan.
In 1996, he starred with George Takei, (Star Trek's Sulu) in the television movie Rinko The Best Bad Thing, based upon the novel by Yoshiko Uchida. During that same year, Tetsuro began hosting the Montreal Asian Heritage Festival.
In 1997, he created and produced three episodes of La La Pan-Asia, a half-hour TV show showcasing Asian youth culture. In 1998 he was awarded Canada Council grant to write a new play, The Moons of Tokyo. In 1999, Shigematsu was invited to be artist-in-residence at Technoboro, an artist-run media lab.
His video work has been seen in the Montreal World Film Festival, the Biosphere, and won the Prix du Public at the Evénement Interuniversitaire d'Art.
He speaks English, French, Japanese, and Persian.
In 2007, Tetsuro completed his feature film debut Yellow Fellas, which he wrote & directed.
In 2009, Tetsuro appeared in Episode 2 of the TV series Deadliest Warrior, as one of the experts for the Samurai team.