Sedge Thomson is an American

radio personality A radio personality (American English) or radio presenter (British English) is a person who has an on-air position in radio broadcasting. A radio personality who hosts a radio show is also known as a radio host, and in India and Pakistan as a rad ...

, 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'' is a weekly two-hour radio variety show hosted by Sedge Thomson. The unscripted program features interviews with world-renowned authors and cultural figures along with performances by musicians, comedians and other entertaine ...

''. ''West Coast Live'' was named "Most Innovative Radio Show" by NY Radio Festival 2012-2013. Thomson has become known for his likeable and ever-curious personality, and also for his red shoes.

Career

Radio interviewer

Thomson is from Berkeley, California. In the late 1980s and early 1990s he was the principal Bay Area interviewer for such groups as City Arts and Lectures. More than forty of his on-stage conversations are archived in the

Bancroft Library The Bancroft Library in the center of the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, is the university's primary special-collections library. It was acquired from its founder, Hubert Howe Bancroft, in 1905, with the proviso that it retai ...

collection at the University of California. One of his interviews with Jonathan Miller was adapted as an 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. He hosted the "Neptune All Night" 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 are found on YouTube For 8 years prior to ''West Coast Live,'' Sedge produced and hosted a live radio show called ''West Coast Weekend,'' heard in the San Francisco Bay Area on

KQED KQED may refer to: * KQED (TV), a PBS member station in San Francisco * KQED-FM KQED-FM (88.5 MHz) is a NPR-member radio station in San Francisco, California. Its parent organization is KQED Inc., which also owns its television partners, both ...

and in Philadelphia on WHYY. During this period, Thomson wrote an original radio serial called "City Ice: The story of Quin Walker, Detective and Decent Guy." He wrote for

Ian McKellen Sir Ian Murray McKellen (born 25 May 1939) is an English actor. His career spans seven decades, having performed in genres ranging from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction. Regarded as a British cultural i ...

who performed with him and the cast after Thomson interviewed the actor. ''West Coast Live'', for which he is most widely known, features world-renowned authors, musicians, comedians, scientists and other cultural figures who perform and are interviewed by Thomson. The show is performed onstage in front of a theater audience each Saturday morning from various Bay Area theaters, as well as on the road. It is broadcast live on KALW, Jefferson Public Radio and many other NPR stations coast-to-coast across America, and streamed online. With his program he has toured extensively through Alaska and the Yukon, New York, Paris, London, Port Townsend film festivals with guests Malcolm McDowell, Debra Winger and Piper Laurie.

Commercials and narration

He performed with bassist Matthew Brubeck on a commercial for chocolate, with Thomson the voice of the cacao. He also voiced commercials for the General Motors EV1 electric car and has narrated several TV specials, including ''Steinbeck: A Wayward Journey'' which he co-produced and wrote.

Producer

From 2013 to 2015, Thomson produced the family feature film,

Kepler's Dream ''Somnium'' (Latin for "The Dream") — full title: ''Somnium, seu opus posthumum De astronomia lunari'' — is a novel written in Latin in 1608 by Johannes Kepler, and first published in 1634 by Kepler's son, Ludwig Kepler. In the narrative, an ...

, based on the novel by Juliet Bell. He also plays the pilot and made other uncredited contributions. The film stars Holland Taylor, Sean Patrick Flanery,

Kelly Lynch Kelly Ann Lynch (born January 31, 1959) is an American actress and model. Her notable film roles include '' Cocktail'', '' Road House'', ''Drugstore Cowboy'', ''Curly Sue''. and TV show roles in ''The L Word'' (2004–2005, 2009), and '' Magic Cit ...

, Kelly Hu, and introduces Isabella Blake-Thomas. It was filmed in New Mexico in the summer of 2014 and completed in London in 2015. It was slated for release in December 2017. Thomson is separated from novelist

Sylvia Brownrigg Sylvia Alderyn Brownrigg (born December 16, 1964) is an American author. She is the author of seven books of fiction. Brownrigg's books have been on ''The New York Times'' notable fiction lists and ''Los Angeles Times'' and ''Kirkus'' books of the ...

, and they both live in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...

with their son and daughter.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thomson, Sedge American radio personalities Living people Year of birth missing (living people)