Sedge Thomson

Sedge Thomson is an American radio personality, impresario, writer and film producer. He is best known as the host of the popular Saturday morning radio variety show West Coast Live. West Coast live features world-renowned authors, musicians, comedians, scientists and other cultural figures who perform and are interviewed by Thomson. The show is performed live onstage in front of a theater audience each Saturday morning from various Bay Area theaters, and on the road from the San Juan Islands and Alaska to London, Paris and New York. It is broadcast live on KALW, Jefferson Public Radio and many other NPR stations coast-to-coast, and streamed online. With his program he has toured extensively through Alaska and the Yukon, New York, Paris, London, Port Townsend film festivals with his guests Malcolm McDowell, Debra Winger and Piper Laurie. Sedge Thomson's West Coast Live was Named "Most Innovative Radio Show" by NY Radio Festival 2012-2013

Prior to West Coast Live, Sedge produced and hosted a live radio show called West Coast Weekend for 8 years, heard only in the San Francisco Bay Area on KQED and in Philadelphia on WHYY. Sedge is known for his likeable and ever-curious personality, and his red shoes.^[1][2][3][4] During the West Coast Weekend days, Thomson wrote an original radio serial called "City Ice: The story of Quin Walker, Detective and Decent Guy. One episode he wrote for actor Ian McKellan who performed with him and the cast after Thomson interviewed Mr McKellan. ^[5] He also performed with bassist Matthew Brubeck on a commercial for chocolate, with Thomson the voice of the cacao. He also voiced commercials for the EV1 electric car and has narrated several TV specials, including Steinbeck: A Wayward Journey which he co-produced and wrote.

In the late 1980s and early 90s he was the principal Bay Area interview for such groups as City Arts and Lectures. 43 of his on-stageconversations are now in the Bancroft Library collection at the University of California.^[6] One of his one stage interviews with Jonathan Miller was adapted as a essay called Among Chickens in Granta 23: Home.

In the summers and winters of 1989-1991, Thomson served as the guest host on "Fresh Air" for Terry Gross when she was on vacation from WHYY, in Philadelphia. He hosted the Neptune All Night legendary broadcast linking scientist and humorists from around the US as the first pictures came through from the Neptune planet fly-by. Excerpts and the whole PBS broadcast broadcast are found on YouTube ^[7]

From 2013 -2015, Thomson turned his producing skills to the movie world. He produced a family feature film, Kepler's Dream, based on the novel by Juliet Bell. The film stars Holland Taylor, Sean Patrick Flanery, Kelly Lynch, Kelly Hu, and introduces Isabella Blake-Thomas. It was filmed in New Mexico in the summer of 2014 and completed in London in 2015. ^[8] He also plays the pilot and made other uncredited contributions.

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