Evanston, IL- based Paul McComas has worked as a freelance artist/performer in several fields throughout the nation, particularly in the Midwest. He has experience, and has won prizes, as an author, actor, filmmaker, and educator/lecturer. Among his professional prizes and accolades: a two-time "Chicago Reader" Critic’s Choice recipient in theater/performance, film awards including one from the American Film Institute's "Visions of US" competition, plus teaching awards from Northwestern University and National-Louis University. He has also taught at the University of Chicago's Graham School, Lawrence University's Summer-seminar series, and Tribeca Flashpoint Academy of Media Arts. Paul is also a successful songwriter and musician with one indie-label album to his credit and a second on the way.
Paul McComas has also enjoyed a career as a presenter, educator, and performer at adult-education seminars, libraries, learning-in-retirement programs, and independent-living communities throughout the Chicagoland area as well as at numerous venues in his native Wisconsin. He focuses his presentations on the arts and humanities – primarily: literature, theatre, media (cinema and classic-TV), and music – blending dramatic performances with scholarly analysis. In this capacity, he draws on his extensive background in education, which includes teaching at various levels, ranging from adult education to masters-level courses – and from his undergraduate minor of Psychology, occasionally weaving social sciences into his arts-and-humanities programs.
As an author, he has written eight published, acclaimed books (seven, fiction; one, a volume about film) and edited two short-story collections. He is in the process of adapting his multi-award-winning novel "Unplugged" (2002; expanded 15th Anniversary Edition, 2017) into an animated feature film, voice-starring Christina Ricci, along with Jeri Ryan ("Star Trek"), Sheryl Lee ("Twin Peaks"), rocker John Doe, and – in their final performances – the late legends Ed Asner and Louis Gossett, Jr.
In nearly all of his creative output, Mr. McComas strives to explore and develop the intersections between, one the one hand, arts and humanities and, on the other hand, social- and environmental-justice, healing, and progressive outreach, advocacy, and activism.
Mr. McComas graduated magna cum laude from Lawrence University with an English degree, then earned a Master of Arts in film from Northwestern University.