Fonds F025 - Peter Madden fonds

Peter Madden was born October 14, 1939 in the Toronto area. Between his 12th and 31st birthday, he spent many years first in reformatories and later in prison. He wrote his first play, Criminal Record (1971), while incarcerated at Collins Bay Penitentiary. The production of this play was invited to the Dominion Drama Festival in 1971. Later, it was adapted into a film, Cell 16, produced by the National Film Board (NFB), and Peter Madden was paroled from Collins Bay Penitentiary as a writer for the NFB. Since his release in 1971, Peter Madden committed himself to writing. In 1974, he wrote the script for the NFB-film One Man and the play The Night No One Yelled, which was produced by Beggars’ Workshop in Montreal. Peter Madden’s script Leave my Kids Alone was released by the NFB in 1990 under the title The Ticket Back. Peter Madden worked as a writer, playwright, screenwriter, and poet for the remainder of his life. He predominantly wrote about prisons, crime, and incarceration. Some of his plays were produced as radio dramas for the CBC. From 1972 to 1977, Peter Madden was Artistic director at the Beggars’ Workshop Theatre in Montreal. In 1977, he was awarded for the screenplay of the NFB-film One Man. Peter Madden lived in Montreal from 1971 until his death on September 9, 2006. He had two sons.