 Mainstage Season
The 14th Annual Playwrights' Festival
An expanded
festival for 2010
Production sponsor:
John L. Scott Real Estate -- Teresa Goldsmith
Venue: Key City Playhouse
The Festival has concluded for 2010.
Thank you all!
Ran Feb 12 to Feb 28, with weeklong events
Tuesdays through Sundays.
Our press release
and photos
Full Festival Calendar
General admission $18 (Fri & Sat evenings); $15
(Sun matinees).
General admission $10 at all other performances.
Students $10 at all shows.
Plan
your visit
New. Original. Local.
Workshop productions of new works by local playwrights
Sandy Diamond, David H. Schroeder, Susan Solley and DD Wigley.
Staged readings of new works by local playwrights
Judith Glass Collins, David Draheim and Richard Weston
-- and featuring regional playwright Andrea Stolowitz.
One Act Productions Fri & Sat evenings, Sun matinees Full Calendar
"Belief" by David H. Schroeder
"Mickey" by DD Wigley
"The Farm in the Neighborhood" by Susan Solley
Directed by Heidi Heimarck
Time: Approx. 2 hour 20 minutes. (Includes a
short break and one
15 min intermission.)
Ages: Parents may note that the first play "Belief" is
family-friendly. Both "Mickey" and "The Farm in the Neighborhood"
contain strong language.
Review:
P.T. Leader: "Playwrights and actors deliver evening of
superb storytelling"
Review:
Kitsap Sun:
"Colin Coker and Iain Coates both were so guilelessly effective...
["Farm" was] clever, hilarious, very subversive..."
Review:
Steve Treacy: [Mickey:] "The final tableau is
hauntingly effective."
[Belief:] "...insights into fantasy and
reality are poignant."
Casts and Summaries
"Belief" by David H. Schroeder
A bittersweet memory piece about boys and
comic books,
hope and loss, and learning to believe.
Old Writer --- Ian Keith
Young Writer --- Murren Kennedy
Editor --- David Alvarez
Dad --- Zach Nesmith
Big Brother --- Colin Coker
Little Brother --- Iain Coates
"Mickey" by DD Wigley
The
powerful narrative of a young homeless
kid
whose story is as brutal as he is
innocent.
Mickey --- Freeman Luoma
Sally --- Susan Pratt
Soldier Joe --- Mickey McKinney
 "Farm in the Neighborhood" by Susan Solley
A viciously funny tall tale from the suburban
frontier
of Edmonds that ends with a clever twist.
Mickey --- Amanda Steurer
Gavin --- Jesse Wiegel
Rhonda --- Erin Lamb
Jay --- Murren Kennedy
Joanie --- Rebecca May
Ken --- Michael Cavett
See
our full press release for more photos...
The director's comments: "I am really enthused about directing these three
pieces, not only because I get to spend some real time in
beautiful Port Townsend, but also because these are three very
different plays, three very different playwrights and three very
different casts. As with any new play, the hope is that
the rehearsal process and further development of the piece and
the characters will lift the play up higher than the playwright
had even imagined."
About Heidi Heimarck: Her Seattle acting
career began with New City Theater's production of "Fefu and Her
Friends”, directed by the playwright Maria Irene Fornes, continued
with a number of Ki Gottberg's original works at Theater Zero and
Intiman, and developed into writing and directing at Annex Theatre
during its formative years. She was a co-creator of Union Garage
Performance Space, a founding member of Theatre Babylon, and is the
Founding Artistic Director of the Mae West Fest, an annual festival
of performances written and directed by women. She is a proud
recipient of the Glen Mazen award and received awards from the Jane
Chambers Int'l Women's Playwriting Competition, Actors Theater of
Louisville, and Vermont Studio Center.
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Full Length Production
Wed & Thu evenings, Sat matinees Full Calendar
"Blanche and Claude
in Seclusion"
by Sandy Diamond
Directed by Denise Winter
Blanche is manic. Claude is
depressed. Both are young suicidal patients in a New York mental
hospital in 1970.
Languishing in adjacent cells, they rave, argue, tell jokes,
invoke their gods and are inexorably drawn to their suspenseful
destinies.
Blanche’s re-enacts a friend’s suicide. Claude is haunted by the
ghost of his sister. The parents visit with false gaiety, their
hopes raised and dashed by their children’s increasingly ominous
language.
This hilarious tragedy is heady with reparté, sex, semantics,
feminism, family and, of course, mental health. Samuel
Beckett, Gertrude Stein, Red Riding Hood, Jekyll and Hyde — all
do a turn in this mad free-for-all on both sides of the locked
gates of Seclusion.
As Claude says, “You don’t have to be certified to be crazy.”
Review:
Steve Treacy: "...a breakthrough for local
playwrights.
This world-class drama uses poetry to paint
the sunset
between 'everyday life' and [the] mindset
of 'insanity'...
Blanche (Rose Burt) and Claude (Murren
Kennedy) are marvelous..."
Cast
Blanche --- Rose
Burt
Claude --- Murren Kennedy
Vivian --- Maggie Wegener
Renee Monchaty --- Maggie Wegener
Mommy --- Erin Lamb
Daddy --- Michael Cavett
Moms --- Karen Starling
Dads --- Thaddeus Jurczynski
Another Man --- Robert Komishane
Photo at right: Trapped in a
confusing world of seclusion, hospital inmate Blanche (Rose Burt)
invokes the spirit of artist’s model
Reneé Monchaty (Maggie Wegener)
asking, “Are you real or are you a painting?” in “Blanche and Claude
in Seclusion,”
a full-length play by Sandy
Diamond premiering at the 14th Annual Playwrights’ Festival now
running through Feb 28
at Key City Playhouse in Port
Townsend. Photo by Eligius Wolodkewitsch / KCPT.
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One Act Readings
Tues evenings Full Calendar
"Meeting Denny" by Richard Weston
Directed by Adam Matthew
"A Portrait of Five Generations" by David Draheim
Directed by David Draheim and Steve Treacy
"Taste" by Judith Glass Collins
Directed by David Hundhausen
Casts
"Meeting Denny" by Richard Weston
Denny --- Steve Gillard
Michelle --- Cheron Dudley
Toni --- Madeline Levy
"A Portrait of Five Generations" by
David Draheim
A --- Patricia Earnest
B --- DD Wigley
C --- Marlena Codda
D --- Rosaletta Curry
Boy --- Freeman Luoma
"Taste" by Judith Glass Collins
Man --- Joseph Bednarik
Woman --- Nancy Israel
Waitress --- Iris Bracey
Playwright --- Kristin Wolfram
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Full Length Reading
Sun evenings Full Calendar
"Tales of Doomed Love (or is it ever worth it?)"
by
Andrea Stolowitz
Directed by Denise Winter
Time: 70 Minutes
The setting is the underworld of
love.
A place covered in sand where
the lost objects of past relationships are housed.
A place filled with the memories
of how it could have been.
A place where it always rains.
Featuring Angela Gilbert and Guy Sands performing six roles:
-- Romeo and Juliet
-- Lisé: Cinderella's step-sister.
-- Agamemnon: Commander of the Greeks in the Trojan War. Father to
Iphigenia.
-- Glauce: Princess of Corinth, fiancé to Jason. Medea’s rival.
-- King Mark: Friend of Tristan, Husband of Isolde.
Prior to receiving this workshop staged reading
with KCPT, TALES OF DOOMED LOVE
premiered in Washington, DC at The Studio Theater as part of the
2008 Fringe Festival where it was called “one of the finest entries
in the Capital Fringe” by DC Theater Scene. The production was
then remounted at DC's Spooky Action Theater. The play was also
workshopped at the StreetSigns Center for Literature and Performance
(Chapel Hill, NC) where it was named “best new script” by the
Triangle Independent. Additional development occurred at The Artists
of Tomorrow Festival (NYC).
About Andrea Stolowitz: Andrea
Stolowitz is a graduate of the MFA playwriting program at U C
San Diego. She has had her plays presented at The Cherry Lane
(NYC), The Old Globe (SD), The Long Wharf (CT), New York Stage
and Film (NY), and Portland Center Stage (OR). Her play
KNOWING CAIRO had its professional world premiere at The Old
Globe Theater (San Diego) where it earned a San Diego “Billie”
Best New Play Award and was named as an LA Times Critic’s Pick.
It has had subsequent national and international productions.
Ms. Stolowitz will also conduct our
annual playwrighting workshops while attending the
Playwrights' Festival. (See below.)
Annual Playwriting Workshops
Sat Feb 20 & Sun Feb 21 Full Calendar
With our visiting Portland playwright Andrea Stolowitz.
For more information, or to register online, see
our
classes and workshops page.
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One-act winners announced
The Port Townsend Arts Commission has announced the winners
of the 2009 One Act Play Competition. The six winning plays and
playwrights will all be part of an expanded Fourteenth Annual
Playwrights’ Festival to be produced by Key City Public Theatre
in February of 2010.
The winners are “Taste” by Judith Glass Collins, “A Portrait of
Five Generations” by David Draheim, “Belief” by David H.
Schroeder, “The Farm in the Neighborhood” by Susan Solley,
“Meeting Denny” by Richard Weston, and “Mickey” by DD Wigley.
For the Playwrights’ Festival, three of these plays will receive
workshop productions and three will be given staged readings.
KCPT Artistic Director Denise Winter will determine the level of
production that is best for each script in consultation with the
playwrights and festival directors, and the playwrights are
invited to continue polishing their scripts throughout the
process.
This year’s panel of judges included local actress/director
Angela Gilbert, and Seattle-based theatre artists Michael Paul
and director/playwright Heidi Heimarck, who will continue as a
festival director in 2010.
Presentations of all six winning plays will be part of the
expanded Playwrights’ Festival, which in 2010 will also include
both a workshop production of the full-length drama “Blanche and
Claude in Seclusion” by former festival winner Sandy Diamond—and
a staged reading of a full-length script being solicited from
noted regional playwrights.
This is the second win for playwright Judith Glass Collins,
whose play “Veterans’ Day” was performed at the Twelfth Annual
Playwrights’ Festival in 2008 and was also given a reading by
the Darien Players in Connecticut. Collins is a psychologist,
drama therapist, and co-owner of Marrowstone Vineyards.
David Draheim moved to Marrowstone Island about a year ago, but
has been writing theatre for eleven years in New York and Maine.
Author of some twenty plays, Draheim has received readings of
his one-acts at The Kitchen Theatre in Ithaca, New York and at
the Maine Playwrights’ Festival.
David H. Schroeder is new to writing one-acts, although an
earlier version of his winning script received Honorable Mention
in last year’s competition. His musical “Alkmena” has received
three productions on the peninsula, and his
musical-in-development "Expectations" participated in the 2004
ASCAP/Disney Musical Theatre Workshop in Los Angeles.
Susan Solley has been involved in theater her entire life. She
has been a member of KCPT for twenty years, serving as a board
member and appearing on stage in “The Mad Woman of Chaillot,”
“Amadeus,” and several previous Playwrights’ Festivals. This is
her first time as a winning playwright.
Richard Weston is another first time winner. Weston, who moved
to Port Townsend in 2007, has written three complete plays, one
of which received a staged reading at the San Francisco Actors
Ensemble. As a performer, he has appeared in KCPT’s “Golden Age
Radio Christmas” as well as in several television shows,
commercials, and a Michael Jackson video.
DD Wigley is now a two-time winner, having seen her play “Apple”
performed at the Twelfth Annual Playwrights’ Festival in 2008.
As a performer, Wigley is recognized as the Duchess of Ephesus
from this past summer’s “The Comedy of Errors” and as The Hoopoe
in KCPT’s 2008 “Conference of the Birds.”
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Previews
Our full press release is here.
Reviews
Kitsap
Sun
Steve Treacy (One-Act Productions)
P. T. Leader
Steve Treacy ("Blanche and Claude...")
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![Daniel Stengel in "Scrooge The Musical" 2009 [Photo: Phil Baumgaertner]](2009/Scrooge_81x81.jpg)
