KY Mystery Writers' Fest-Schedule Announced

Complete International Mystery Writers' Festival Schedule Announced - Winner of The Edgar Award with 5 Edgar nominations and Winner of the Ellery Queen Readers Award for 3 Consecutive Years Added

Works of Grand Master Stuart Kaminsky and the Legendary Robert S. Levinson to Be Presented Under Direction from Multi Award Winning Live Radio Theatre Style Experts(OWENSBORO, KY) The International Mystery Writers' Festival announces a Special Event Category featuring works from Stuart Kaminsky and Robert S. Levinson plus five finalist screenplays complete the second half of the "Discovering New Mysteries" schedule for the first festival June 12-17. "Discovering New Mysteries" is the only festival to present live, professionally produced performances of new mystery plays and screenplays. The titles of six new stage play finalists were released mid-February, and now the final piece of the mystery festival puzzle is in place. (See following full schedule.)

Kaminsky is currently Grand Master for the prestigious Mystery Writers of America Association, and he is winner of the coveted Edgar Award. He also has five Edgar nominations to his credit. Judges have selected his latest mystery to be featured in a Special Event Category alongside a new masterful work from another legendary author, Robert S. Levinson. Levinson is winner of the Ellery Queen Readers Award for three consecutive years and has been a Los Angeles Times Best Seller numerous times. One of Levinson's short works has been selected present in special Double-Bill format with Kaminsky's work.

The newly announced screenplays include works from a "Project Greenlight" finalist (the Matt Damon/Ben Affleck competition), a legal affairs attorney at NBC/Universal Pictures and a team of U.S.-born Canadian writers.

The festival also announced a multi-award winning director/producer team will oversee the ground-breaking production style of performing full screenplays in a "live with audience" radio-theater format. David Ossman and Judith Walcutt are award-winning writers, directors, producers and performers for radio, television and theater. Ossman is a founding member of the legendary Firesign Theatre (dubbed one of the "30 Greatest Comedy Acts of All Time" in Entertainment Weekly) and has directed stars including Jason Robards, Steve Allen and John Goodman. Ossman also played Cornelius the Ant in Disney/Pixar's No. 1 box-office release of "A Bug's Life." Walcutt has produced numerous national radio series featuring stars including James Earl Jones, Dick Van Dyke, Ed Asner and Harry Hamlin.

Together, Ossman and Walcutt will bring to life the characters, scenes, special effects, music scores and sounds that audiences would otherwise see and hear in big screen movie theatres. The screenplay finalists will be presented in intimate theatre settings where the actors are close with the audiences and the changes of scene are narrated in dramatic fashion leaving the audiences' imagination to fill in the picture.

The screenplay finalists are:

Special Event Category with two Works: "Transcript," by Robert S. Levinson and "Books," by Stuart Kaminsky. Levinson, Ellery Queen Award-winning and Los Angeles Times' best-seller author, uses clever dialogue to depict a Hollywood diva's dictation of her autobiography in "Transcript," but what seems like a celebrity story turns into confessions of murder. In a second encore of master writing, Mystery Writers' of America current Grand Master Stuart Kaminsky's "Books" takes us on a "page-turning" journey from a bank robbery mystery to a bookstore full of hostages, tension, trouble and double-crossing."Albatross" by Lance Rucker and Tim Perrin – This smart and surprising political thriller traces a love affair through a blackmail scheme with intriguing world wide political implications. Rucker is a Louisville, Ky., native now living in British Columbia. "Albatross" is the first product of a professional relationship between Rucker and Perrin, who has written five books, numerous magazine articles, another screenplay and a TV pilot. Together, they have created a fast-paced film script that will have the audience hanging on every twist and turn of plot."Evidence" by Marlo Brawer – When a wrongly convicted prisoner survives his own execution, he has to stay one step ahead of the law and villainous scientists, while trying to prove his innocence – and he only has 48 hours to do it before it becomes twice deadly. Brawer is an award-winning reporter and accomplished screenwriter who has been a finalist in more than a half-dozen contests, including The Writer's Digest-American Screenwriter's Association International Screenplay Competition, American Screenplay Competition, Scriptapalooza television spec and pilot contests (three times) and the Blueprint Screenwriting Competition. Brawer also works as a production counsel for NBC-Universal."Slayer of Clocks" by Camille LaGuire – This is a quirky noir thriller about a crooked security guard who matches wits with a beautiful heiress and her paranoid ex-boyfriend in a search for lost ransom money, and they each struggle to find the value for their own lives. The audience will be engaged in characters that carry you through the depths of love, loss and living."Slip" by Dan Smith – This screenplay focuses on the seemingly small incidents that happen to each of us every day. What if one of those incidents changed your life forever? "Slip" is a clever triple-twist of plot in unraveling small incidents into life-changing episodes. Smith's creative screenplay was a finalist in the 2004 "Project Greenlight" competition, and he currently has two screenplays in production. In addition, 18 of Smith's plays produced on various stages in Connecticut. His play "A Sparkle in The Sky" was the first runner-up in the 2001 Association for Theatre in Higher Education national playwriting competition."The Luckiest Woman in the World" by Tanis Galik – When a television star's wife dies in a suspicious car accident, ironic twists of fate leave a cunningly obsessed fan and the self-assured star struggling to keep innocent stories straight.

The first International Mystery Writers' Festival, "Discovering New Mysteries," will be held at the RiverPark Center in Owensboro, Ky., from June 12 – 17. Producers, directors, agents, publishers and critics representing national and international theater, television and motion pictures will attend, along with many guest stars, to view the festival's world premiere of 12 new "live, on stage" works.

In addition, many of the festival's executive committee members will attend. They are award-winning and nationally renowned authors and screenwriters, including Sue Grafton (the Alphabet Murders), Ira Levin ("Deathtrap," "Rosemary's Baby"), William Link (creator of "Murder She Wrote" starring Angela Lansbury), current Grand Master of Mystery Writers of America and Edgar Winner Stuart Kaminsky, John Jakes, Samuel "Biff" Liff, Robert S. Levinson and James W. Hall.

The audiences for the festival will help select all of the final winners of the stage plays and screenplays categories. For a description of the play finalists, visit http://newmysteries.org/performances/.

Ticket prices range from approximately $7.50 to $29.00. Master classes by best seller authors are free. Group discounts available for groups larger than 20. For additional information or to make reservations, call 877-639-6978 (877-NEW-MYSTery) or visit www.newmysteries.org.

Now in its 15^{th year, RiverPark Center is a first-class regional entertainment complex. Six professional, international touring musical productions have been built here, making Owensboro, Ky., one of the top five communities outside New York City for building and premiering these shows prior to their U.S. or Asian tours. The nearly 100,000 square-foot facility includes a state-of-the-art 1,500-seat Cannon Hall, the 300-seat black-box Jody Berry Cabaret Theatre, the 1,000 capacity outdoor riverfront BB&T Plaza and the International Bluegrass Music Museum.} 

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