Shepherd University Hosts Internationally Prodcued Playwright

Shepherd University's Department of Contemporary Art & Theater hosts internationally produced playwright Steve Yockey. Yockey will work with Shepherd students on their upcoming production of his play very still & hard to see, directed by Contemporary American Theater Festival General Manager Joshua Midgett. The production will be performed in November.

As part of his residency, Yockey will host a Sneak Peek and Q&A Session on October 10th at 7pm in the Marinoff Theater. This event is free and open to the public. Yockey will read selected scenes from very still & hard to see. Following the Sneak Peek audience members are invited to participate in a discussion with the playwright and director.

In very still & hard to see, Yockey deftly stitches the real and the surreal, reminding us that the fuzzy line between good and evil can sometimes be a single choice. A fractured story of a cursed hotel that unearths worlds populated by the desperate, the unlucky, and the monstrous, the play cycle mixes comedic absurdity with raw heartbreak.

Midgett celebrates the collaborative partnership between Shepherd University and the Festival. "CATF has long valued the significance of having the living playwright in the room. We're very lucky to be able to share this experience with Shepherd University's new Contemporary Theater Studies program, not only to introduce Yockey to those involved in the production, but also for him to sit in on classes, and read selections from the play, and to invite the community to participate in the process. Having a published and frequently produced playwright visit the University is indicative of the relationship between Shepherd and CATF."

Steve Yockey is a Los Angeles based writer with work produced throughout the US, Europe, and Asia. His plays Bellwether, Pluto, Afterlife, Octopus, Large Animal Games, CARTOON, Subculture, very still & hard to see, The Fisherman's Wife, Wolves, Disassembly, and Niagara Falls & Other Plays are published and available from Samuel French. Additionally, his play Joshua Consumed an Unfortunate Pear (originally commissioned by Miami's City Theatre) was included in the 2015 Humana Festival of New American Plays and the subsequent published anthology. Other plays include Blackberry Winter, The Thrush & The Woodpecker, Bleeding Hearts, and Bliss. His new play Mercury will open this season at Salt Lake Acting Company in Salt Lake City, Utah and Stray Cat Theatre in Phoenix, AZ. Steve is an artistic associate at Forum Theatre in Washington, DC and a company member of Out of Hand in Atlanta, GA. He holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and currently serves as a writer/producer for the television series Supernatural.

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