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2009 Conference

June 11 - 20, 2009 at the Alpine Playhouse in McCall Idaho (map)

Featuring 2009 Guest Playwright Caridad Svich

 

The Schedule

All staged readings start at 7:30pm at the Alpine Playhouse unless otherwise noted

FREE OF CHARGE

Thursday, June 11: Plays From McCall-Donnelly High School

Friday, June 12: A Few Small Gestures For Everyday Life/ A PATRIOT SONG by Caridad Svich

Saturday, June 13: RED ROVER by Michele Raper Rittenhouse

Wednesday, June 17 at 7:30pm: COLONY COLLAPSE by James Price*

Thursday, June 18: Plays From McCall-Donnelly High School

Friday, June 19: IDAHO/DEAD IDAHO by Samuel D. Hunter

Saturday, June 20 at 2:00pm: THE THING WITH FEATHERS by Duane Kelly *

Saturday, June 20 at 7:30pm: VEILS by Tom Coash

*Sit-down Reading @ Central Idaho Historical Museum, 100 State Street

 

SPECIAL EVENT :

Saturday, June 13th from 11:00am-2:00pm

Hearing the World : an intensive playwriting workshop with Caridad Svich

Central Idaho Historical Museum, 100 State Street (Carpenter's Shop)

 

The 2009 Plays

A Few Small Gestures For Everyday Life/ A PATRIOT SONG by Caridad Svich A couple on vacation struggles to “get away from it all” in a mysterious paradise of hustlers and spirit guides; wanderers and runaways. But can they escape the legacy of the damage already done, or will they be lured to the sandy beach covered in bones and the ocean that spits blood.

COLONY COLLAPSE by James Price Boyd's bee colonies are dying just as his brother's company clandestinely develops an experimental pollination process which promises to make bees obsolete. Boyd knows he's facing the battle of a lifetime, and just when it seems that he might lose it all-- his bees, his farm, even his wife, a chance encounter with an unlikely ally promises to change Boyd's luck, and the world's, forever. (*Sit-down Reading / Central Idaho Historical Museum, 100 State Street .)

IDAHO/DEAD IDAHO by Samuel D. Hunter A young taxidermist working at an Indian casino makes a desperate attempt to re-assemble his family by impregnating his cousin. But when his lover returns from Iraq – on his 30 th birthday – all his best efforts can't seem to stop everything he's built from spiraling toward collapse. A play about family, togetherness, sincere emotion, dead animals & the coming apocalypse.

RED ROVER by Michele Raper Rittenhouse Clover, Mississippi, 1969: Miss May and the Good Lord have been on the outs for some time now, so when her grandson Robbie is reported M.I.A. overseas, she has little reason to think He'll help her now; yet something in grand-daughter Katie's scheme to lure Robbie - and hope - back from the abyss tugs at Miss May. Encouraging Katie to defy her mother, Miss May unknowingly thrusts Katie into terrible danger risking Katie's life… and her own.

THE THING WITH FEATHERS by Duane Kelly * There was a time when Harry's coffee farm, and the make-shift family he'd built there, offered the freedom and peace he sought. But with the farm falling into bankruptcy and the ghosts of his past closing in like the bars of a cage, Harry finds his only hope is the very person he came to Costa Rica to escape: himself. (*Sit-down Reading / Central Idaho Historical Museum,100 State St.)

VEILS by Tom Coash When Intisar left her home in the U.S. and enrolled at the American University in Cairo, she thought she'd finally fit in. But when a campus-wide ban on wearing burkas causes a riot, Intisar and her Egyptian roommate Samar are surprised to find themselves of opposite sides of the cultural divide. Will their YouTube video, exploring the controversial practice of wearing veils - nor not - heal their bruised friendship or force them irreparably apart?

 

The 2009 Playwrights

Tom Coash (Veils) A New Haven, Ct. playwright and director, Mr. Coash also worked as the Director of New Play Development at Stageworks/Hudson for the last four years. Prior to New Haven, he spent three years in Bermuda and four years teaching playwriting at The American University in Cairo, Egypt. He has had many productions of his plays and has worked for such theatres as the Manhattan Theatre Club and Actors Theatre of Louisville. Coash has won numerous playwriting awards including Ensemble Studio Theatre's Hammerstein Award, The Kennedy Center's Lorraine Hansberry Award, and a Jerome Playwriting Fellowship. Coash was the recipient of a 2007 CT. State Artist Fellowship. He is currently working on new plays commissioned by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and The InterAct Theatre. .

Samuel D. Hunter ( Idaho/Dead Idaho )Samuel D. Hunter is from Moscow, Idaho. He received a BFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU in 2004, an MFA from the Iowa Playwrights Workshop in 2007, and is currently a playwright-in-residence at the Juilliard School. Sam is a two-time recipient of Lincoln Center's Le Compte du Nuoy Award, a current member of Playgroup at Ars Nova, and most recently was awarded the 2008-2009 Playwrights of New York (PONY) Fellowship from the Lark Theater, where he is a member of the Lark Playwrights Workshop. His plays include: I AM MONTANA (forthcoming production at London's Arcola Theater in June 2009, produced at Montana Repertory Theater in November 2008, developed at the Flea Theater, 2007 Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, 2008 Ojai Playwrights Conference, 2008 Juilliard New Play Festival, 2007 Bay Area Playwrights Festival), IDAHO / DEAD IDAHO (developed at Ars Nova, Juilliard, the Lark Theater, and Rattlestick Playwrights Theater), NORMAN ROCKWELL KILLED MY FATHER (developed at the 2005 O'Neill Playwrights Conference), ABRAHAM (A SHOT IN THE HEAD) (produced at Richard Foreman's Ontological-Hysteric Theater), and his newest plays, HELLS CANYON (developed at Juilliard and the 2009 LAByrinth Summer Intensive), and GOD OF MEAT (developed at the Lark Theater, the Playwrights Foundation in San Francisco, and Stanford University). Sam has taught at the University of Iowa, Fordham University, and in the Palestinian Territories at Ashtar Theater (Ramallah) and Ayyam al-Masrah (Hebron). At Ashtar, he was co-writer on THE ERA OF WHALES which was produced in the West Bank and at the Istanbul International Theater Festival in Turkey.

Duane Kelly ( The Thing With Feathers ) Duane's full-length plays have had staged readings at Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York and the Last Frontier Theatre Conference in Alaska with Edward Albee.  The Thing With Feathers was a semi-finalist selection for this year's Bay Area Playwrights Festival.  He is currently working on a new play that has an 18 th commedia dell'arte dimension and the maestro Carlo Goldoni as a character.  Duane has spent much of his career in show production.  He and his wife Alice live in Seattle.  He is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America and the Playwrights' Center.

James Price (Colony Collapse) James Price has spent the last twenty five years as a professional actor and musician, including on Broadway in The Civil War and Ring of Fire , internationally with Les Miserables, and off-Broadway as an original cast member of the critically acclaimed Batboy: the Musical (cast album) and bare:a pop opera (cast album). James has performed in regional and stock productions around the country, as well as in Ireland. As a playwright, James was selected to be a Lark Playwright's Workshop Fellow for 2007-2008 and take part in a year-long development program run by renowned playwright Arthur Kopit. James' play, Collision Course (semi-finalist, O'Neill), has had readings/workshops produced at the Actor's Studio(P/D workshop), Stanford University, The Shotgun Players in Berkeley, and most recently at the Lark Theatre in New York City. He has written a number of other plays, including Colony Collapse (Seven Devils Playwrights Intensive), Cellular Connections, Piano in the Woods, and a collection of short plays entitled Scenes From Planet Earth. He is the composer/lyricist of a new musical, Cold Feet ( finalist, O'Neill NMTC), which is now licensed by Miracle or Two Productions in New York City. In addition, he produced and wrote all the songs for award-winning actress Kaitlin Hopkins' debut CD, Make Me Sweat , available at cdbaby.com. James, who is a trained classical guitarist, has a degree in economics from the University of Michigan and later studied for two years at the American Conservatory Theatre in the advanced training program. He has taught master classes in acting at colleges all around the country and is a frequent regional and national judge for the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. In the fall James will join the faculty at Texas State University to teach acting and playwriting. He is a member of the Actor's Studio Playwrights and Directors Workshop, Actor's Equity, Screen Actor's Guild and the Dramatists Guild.

Michèle Raper Rittenhouse (Red Rover)Michèle Raper Rittenhouse has had the opportunity to go to the National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center under the artistic direction of Lloyd Richards. Graduate studies were at Mason Gross School of the Arts. She is a recipient of the Witter Bynner Fellowship, New Century Writers, the Nat Horne New Playwrights Festival, and The Avy Award (4). In the finalist and semifinalist category, she has received letters from; The Seven Devils (3), The O'Neill (4), Chesterfield Film Project (3), New Century Writers (2), Julie Harris Playwright Award, Jane Chambers Playwriting Award, Southwest Theatre Association, National New Play Contest, Louisville Theatre Center-One Act Play Competition, Christopher Wolk Playwriting Award. Her plays have been presented at the following theatres: Lincoln Center-Bruno Walter Auditorium, Joseph Papp's NY Public Theatre-Free at Three Series, Abingdon Theatre Company, Access Theatre Company, Nat Horne Theatre, The Coast Playhouse – LA, Dougherty Art Center-Austin (which burned down during the run of the show), Mary Moody Northen Theatre-Austin, Nomad Theatre-Boulder, New Jersey Institute of Technology-Newark, NJ, and Rutgers University-New Brunswick and Newark campuses. She is Managing Director of Rutgers-NJIT Theatre Arts Program where she developed an undergraduate playwriting program, works with the Abingdon Theatre Company in play development, and has coordinated a playwrights' forum at the Playwrights Horizon School.

Caridad Svich (Guest Playwright - A Few Small Gestures For Everyday Life/A Patriot Song ) is a US Latina playwright, translator, songwriter and editor whose works have been presented across the US and abroad at diverse venues including The Women's Project, INTAR, 59East59, Cincinnati Playhouse, 7 Stages, McCarren Park Pool, Walkerspace, Salvage Vanguard Theatre, ARTheater-Cologne, and Edinburgh Fringe Festival/UK. Her play The House of the Spirits (based on Isabel Allende's novel) premiered this February at Spanish Repertory/NY under Jose Zayas' direction and has been extended until August 23rd ( www.repertorio.org ) and her play Instructions for Breathing premiered at Passage Theatre/NY in April under Daniella Topol's direction, and Wreckage at Crowded Fire Theatre/CA in May under Erin Gilley's direction. Among other key works: 12 Ophelias, Any Place But Here, Alchemy of Desire/Dead-Man's Blues, Fugitive Pieces, Iphigenia...a rave fable , The Tropic of X, The Labyrinth of Desire  and The Booth Variations .  She has edited several books on theatre and performance including Trans-Global Readings (Manchester University Press) and Divine Fire (BackStage Books). She has translated nearly all of Federico Garcia Lorca's plays as well as contemporary works from Argentina, Spain, Mexico and Cuba. She is alumna playwright of New Dramatists, founder of NoPassport theatre alliance & press, associate editor of Routledge's Contemporary Theatre Review and contributing editor of TheatreForum . Her works are published by TCG, Playscripts, Smith & Kraus and more. She is member of PEN American Center, The Dramatists Guild and is featured in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Latino History . She holds an MFA from UCSD. Website: www.caridadsvich.com

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