Seven Devils Playwrights Conference Comes to McCall, Now thru 6/23

id Theater returns to McCall, Idaho for the 12th Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, today, June 11 through June 23, sponsored by the Alpine Playhouse. Playwrights, actors and directors from around the country will travel to McCall and, working with local artists and students, develop ten new plays that will be presented to the public free of charge. Since 2001, the Conference has developed more than 100 new plays by some of the most exciting voices in American Theater.

The Conference will feature the work of 2012 Guest Artist, and award-winning playwright, Kara Lee Corthron whose new play Listen for the Light will be developed and presented as a staged reading at the Conference on Friday, June 15th. Ms. Corthron will also host a free playwriting workshop on Saturday, June 16th. The recipient of the 2008 Princess Grace Award, The Vineyard Theatre’s Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, the Helen Merrill Award and three Lincoln Center’s Lecomte du Nouy Prize; Ms. Corthron is an accomplished writer whose credits include both television and stage with work developed and produced at theaters throughout the country.

Five writers, whose plays were selected from more than 470 open submissions from all over the country will have their work developed and presented at the Conference. Samuel Brett Williams (Revelation), Tira Palmquist (Ten Mile Lake) and Brian Quirk (Warren) will have their plays presented as fully staged readings; and Brian Watkins (General Store) and Thomas Newby (Kingdoms of Rot) will have their work presented as seated readings. Four plays by students at McCall-Donnelly High School will also be presented as staged readings at the Conference.

Plays developed at Seven Devils have gone on to productions at venues around the country including the Humana Festival at Actors Theater of Louisville, Roundabout Theater Underground, Trinity Rep, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Barrington Stage Company, Chicago’s Gift Theater, Kitchen Theater, Montana Rep and Boise Contemporary Theater among others; have garnered awards such as the The John Gassner Playwriting Award (Faith by James McLindon), The Woodward/Newman Drama Award (Lemonade by Mark Krause), and the ACTF/Kennedy Center National Student Playwriting Award (In the Sawtooths by Dano Madden); and are published by Samuel French, Smith & Kraus, Applause, Original Works and Indie Theater Now which offers a collection of 11 plays developed through the Conference.

All conference events are free and open to the public at all times. All events start at 7:30pm unless otherwise noted. More information about schedules, events and travel can be found at: www.idtheater.org/7devils. To reserve a space in the free playwriting workshop email: jeni@idtheater.org.

Thursday, June 14th – PLAYS FROM McCALL-DONNELLY HIGH SCHOOL

Friday, June 15th - LISTEN FOR THE LIGHT by Kara Lee Corthron

The word of God has been revealed to Joseph Smith, making him a prophet to some and a lightning rod to others. In Nauvoo, Illinois in 1844, two of Joseph’s flock await their own revelations: Eli, a free man tormented by a tragic past and Lula, a precocious young woman newly – and reluctantly – betrothed to the prophet. With Joseph facing mounting pressure within the community and within the church, Lula receives a revelation that will change her life and challenge Eli’s faith to its very core.

Saturday, June 16th - WARREN by Brian Quirk

Rose is determined to live out her remaining days at home even if it means hiring someone to help her shovel the snow, mow the lawn and make sure she’s dead before the ambulance is called. Dano needs a job, and a friend. Can this fiercely independent grandmother and this unemployed ichthyologist with Aspergers Syndrome help each other get what they need?

Wednesday, June 20th - GENERAL STORE by Brian Watkins

Mike is determined to keep his faltering general store up and running. He’ll let nothing get in the way of staying open for business: not his two wily daughters, the trucker who thinks he’s dead, the rancher who thinks he’s dying, or even the blizzard outside. But something mysterious is under the floorboards. And it’s getting louder and hungrier. Can Mike save his American Dream from the ravenous creature beneath his store? Or should he just save himself instead?

Thursday, June 21st – PLAYS FROM McCALL-DONNELLY HIGH SCHOOL

Friday, June 22nd - REVELATION by Samuel Brett Williams

Brandon was raised Southern Baptist. Rebecca is an atheist. When people start disappearing, and Rebecca's boyfriend spontaneously bursts into flames, they may not agree about what's happening, but they both know it's time to get out of New York City. Enduring war, famine, butter boarding, and each other -- Brandon and Rebecca head to Arkansas in search of the New Jerusalem...or at least something to believe in.

Saturday, June 23rd at 2:00pm - KINGDOMS OF ROT by Thomas Newby

Unemployed and mired in nihilistic dread, Travis’s pill-popping has finally driven his girlfriend Deborah away, leaving Travis to the mercy of The Shadows in his own head. But when his fantasy world turns out to be just as disappointing as the real world he’s left behind, Travis finds himself alone in a Kingdom he cannot control.

Saturday, June 23rd at 7:30pm - TEN MILE LAKE by Tira Palmquist

Maggie should have known it was a fool’s errand to return to Ten Mile Lake; after all if her father had wanted her to know he was dying, he would have called her himself. It would be easy to just turn around and head back to Portland, especially since he seems to get along better with his new nurse Donny than he ever did with her. But, now that she's home, Maggie can’t seem to leave, and maybe... just maybe she doesn’t really want to.

SPECIAL EVENT - Saturday, June 16th from 11:00am-2:00pm
A Playwriting Workshop with Guest Playwright Kara Lee Corthron

Kara Lee Corthron’s plays include Julius by Design (Fulcrum, July 2011), Etched in Skin on a Sunlit Night (InterAct Theatre in Philadelphia, June 2012), AliceGraceAnon (New Georges, Fall 2012), Holly Down in Heaven (Forum Theatre in D.C., Fall 2012 and recipient of the 2008 Princess Grace Award), Spookwater, Listen for the Light, Electric Persephone in the Scorpion’s Den, and Wild Black-Eyed Susans. Other awards include: The Vineyard Theatre’s 3rd Annual Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, two NEA grants (with InterAct and Naked Angels), the Helen Merrill Award, Lincoln Center’s Lecomte du Nouy Prize (three-time recipient), an E.S.T./Sloan Commission, the Theodore Ward Prize, the New Professional Theatre Writers Award, two MacDowell fellowships, residencies at Skriðuklaustur (Iceland), the Millay Colony, and Ledig House. Current commissions: South Coast Rep, New Georges, and InterAct. Her plays have been produced and/or developed at the African Continuum Theatre (D.C.), Ars Nova, CenterStage (Baltimore), Electric Pear, E.S.T., Horizon Theatre (Atlanta), the Kennedy Center, Naked Angels, New Dramatists, New Georges, New York Theatre Workshop, The Orchard Project, Page 73, Penumbra, PlayPenn Conference, The Shalimar, TheatreWorks (Palo Alto), the Vineyard Theatre, and Voice & Vision among others. TV: writer for NBC’s Kings (2008-2009). Kara is a Juilliard alumna, instructor at Primary Stages’ Einhorn School of Performing Arts, a New Georges Affiliated Artist and member of the 2010-2011 Ars Nova Play Group, ‘Wright On! Playwrights Group (co-founder), Blue Roses Productions, the Dramatists Guild and the Writers Guild of America.

Tira Palmquist is a writer, director and teacher. Her full-length scripts include Ten Mile Lake, Fortune and Pain (at The Edge of the World), The Frequency of Stars and Other Matter, Coyote Rising, Lost Nation and Age of Bees, and is currently at work on a new play And Then They Fell. In the past year almost all of her full-length plays have had readings, including her newest play Ten Mile Lake, which was a part of exAngelus Playwrights’ “A Month of Sundays” reading series. Age of Bees, which was featured in a SEEDS Development series reading at 9Thirty Theatre in NYC in June 2011, will receive its World Premiere Production at MadLab Theatre in Columbus, OH in Nov. 2012. Her short plays have been produced across the country, most recently in Hunger Artists’ Beyond Convention V in Nov. 2011, Short+Sweet Sydney 2011 and the 2011 Sydney Fringe Festival. Tira teaches research and writing at the University of California, Irvine and teaches playwriting at the Orange County High School of the Arts, where she also produces their yearly 10-minute play festival. She is a founding member of exAngelus Playwrights Collective, and is a member of the Dramatists Guild. For more information on Tira you can go to www.tirapalmquist.com.

Brian Quirk is the 2010 winner of The Robert Chesley Award given to an emerging gay/lesbian
playwright. He also received an Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation Grant for his play
MAPPLETHORPE/The Opening, produced at The Provincetown Playhouse, San Francisco’s New
Conservatory Theater Center, San Diego’s Sixth@Penn, The Bahama’s Popop Studios, and developed at Stella Adler and Dixon Place, with over 30 rave reviews. The play was directed by John Stix. Athol Fugard called the play “extraordinary” in BackstageWest. His play Crash was performed at Emerging Artists Theater with Marylouise Burke in a Double Decker Workshop. Marrow was workshopped at Westchester’s Axial Theater Company, Strangers at Dixon Place, and Plushlust was read by id Theater at Jimmy’s No. 43 in a Sit In! (with Lou Liberatore and Meg MacCary). Summerland was a semi-finalist for the 2009 Eugene O’Neill Theatre Conference and was given an in house reading at The Atlantic Theater this spring with Jay O.Sanders, Katie Erbe and Mary McCann. Brian is a three-time MacDowell Colony Fellow, a Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Fellow, winner of a Leon Levy Foundation Grant, and a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur foundation Grant both in 2010. The Chesley Award came with a 12 week residency in Taos at The Wurlitzer Foundation which Brian attended in 2011, and where he wrote a first draft of Warren. Warren was given a reading at The Metta Theatre in Taos. His play Nerine was read at an id Theater Sit In! in July 2010 with Lynn Cohen, Cristin Milioti and Daphne Rubin-Vega. Nerine was a finalist for the 2011 Eugene O’Neill Theatre Conference and was developed at PlayPenn, in the summer of July 2011, directed by Casey Stangl. A professional actor, Brian has performed at New York Theater Workshop, Rattlestick Playwrights, Mabou Mines, Dixon Place, Syracuse Stage, The Atlantic Theater Co., The Cherry Lane, Clubbed Thumb, The Caldwell, Ohio, HERE, and Virginia Stage, among other venues.

Samuel Brett Williams’ plays have been developed/produced at the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Cherry Lane Theatre, Ars Nova, New York Theatre Workshop, Naked Angels, Partial Comfort Productions, the Lark, the Kennedy Center, Yale University, Actors Theatre of Louisville, P73 Productions, WordBRIDGE, and the Joseph Beuys Theater in Moscow, Russia. In 2010, Brett’s play, The Revival, was produced by Project Y Theatre Company, and it was nominated for seven New York Innovative Theatre Awards. The play was then optioned for film by Naked Faith Entertainment, and Brett was hired to write the screenplay. Last year, his play, The Woodpecker, ran for two months in Los Angeles at Mutineer Theatre Company, where it was a Backstage Critic’s Pick. Recently, Brett’s play Derby Day premiered in the Clurman on Theatre Row and ran for three weeks. Brett has received residencies/commissions from P73 Productions, the National Theater Institute, the National New Play Network, and Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey. He is a past winner of the Helen Merrill Emerging Playwright Award (other winners include: Sarah Ruhl, Adam Rapp, and Annie Baker). Currently, Brett is developing an original pilot (with Ryan O’Nan) for 26 Keys Productions (The Unusuals and My Generation).
Thomas Newby graduated from The College of Idaho in 2011 with a degree in Theatre, Music and Creative Writing. His play, Waiting Games, was selected as a 2011 John Cauble Short Play finalist at the Region 7 Kennedy American College Theatre Festival. He is honored to be a part of the Seven Devils Playwrights Conference.

Brian Watkins is a Brooklyn-based playwright whose plays include My Daughter Keeps Our Hammer, General Store, a forest a chorus a harvest, The Bison of Kiowa, and High Plains, which premiered to critical acclaim at the 2009 New York International Fringe Festival. His plays have been produced and developed in New York with b. swibel presents, Playing Pretend Productions, Horse Trade Theatre, New York International Fringe Festival, Wide Eyed Productions, Terra Firma Theatre, Emerging Artists Theatre, and Route 66 Theatre in Chicago, among others. Watkins currently has a commission from Aruba Productions, and is working as a co-writer on a feature film in development for b. swibel presents (Broadway’s Xanadu, Will Ferrell's You're Welcome America). He is also a staff writer for Curator Magazine and a member of the Dramatists Guild.

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