Les Branson

Les Branson (born Duane Leslie Branson) is a writer and filmmaker born in Chicago, Illinois on February 3, 1959, on the day popularly known as The Day the Music Died. He cofounded Thin Dime Theater Company in Dallas, Texas in 1992 with friends Samuel H. Roden and Stephen D. Moran, and held the position of artistic director until the theater company folded in 1997. He is also the founder and owner of Dilligaf Productions, an independent film company based in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metropolitan area. As artistic director of Thin Dime Theater Company, Branson wrote, produced, directed and starred in the play Warboots, which premiered in 1993 at the Hickory Street Annex near Deep Ellum in Dallas. He followed in 1994 with Dead or in Huntsville, a biker drama he wrote and produced for the stage in 1994 at the theater company’s new home, the Swiss Avenue Theater Center where they would remain until 1997. In 1996, Branson produced 3 Violent Plays, a vignette of three short plays, among them Joey, which he adapted from the biography of the same name of New York mobster, Joey (Crazy Joe) Gallo, written in 1973 by Donald Goddard. Thin Dime Theater Company’s final stage production was Hillbilly Karma which Branson wrote, produced and directed in 1997. In 1998 Branson founded the independent film company, Dilligaf Productions, and wrote his first feature-length screenplay, Blood is Thicker, which he directed and co-produced with Samuel H. Roden and David C. Dixon. Blood is Thicker was filmed in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area during eighteen consecutive days of summer in 1998 with a 16mm camera. The film editing was never completed and the project was abandoned in 1999 until restored and edited in 2024. Afterwards, Branson focused on learning the craft of screenwriting, eventually writing a screen version of Dead or in Huntsville in 1999, followed in 2000 by the love story, Joey & Jeffie, a feature-length adaptation based on Donald Goddard’s biography of Joey Gallo. In 2005, Branson wrote the feature-length drama Having My Baby which he independently produced alongside executive producer, Samuel H. Roden, and co-producer and director of photography David C. Dixon. Principal photography for Having My Baby began in the fall of 2006 with a digital camera and limited equipment and crew. The production cost approximately $80,000 to complete, and due to various setbacks, was not completed until 2009. Having My Baby premiered July 2009 in Dallas. It was a selection at the 3rd annual Columbia Gorge International Film Festival in Vancouver, Washington in 2010, and won an award for Most Ambitious Film.