 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Featured Artists The 16th Annual Last Frontier Theatre Conference The following collection of artists have committed to serving as teachers and respondents in the Play Lab at this year’s Conference. Some have done it in the past, and are all excellent. The new people were found by recommendation, and we are greatly looking forward to having them join our Conference family. Check back soon, we will post updates as we get them. Robert Caisley is Associate Professor of Theatre & Film, and Head of the Dramatic Writing Bostin Christopher is originally from Alaska where his grandfather built a homestead in Frank Collisoncomes from a theatre background. His father, John, was an actor and playwright Kia Corthron's plays include Moot the Messenger (ATL Humana 2005), Light Raise the Roof Danielle Dresden, playwright, actor and residency artist, is producing artistic director of TAPIT/new Erma Duricko, director, a member of the Society of Stage Directors/Choreographers, is an Dr. David Edgecombe teaches Directing, Playwriting, Theatre History and Literature at the Since 2001, Peter Ellenstein has been the Artistic Director of the William Inge Center for the Arts in Kim Estes has recently appeared in Co-star and Guest star roles in The Riches, Criminal Minds, Laura Gardner was nominated for Best Supporting Actress by LA Weekly Since moving to Los Angeles, Darcy Halsey has appeared in numerous films and television Prior to taking his current position as Dean of the College of Fine Arts at Indiana University of Arlene Hutton is best known for The Nibroc Trilogy, which includes Last Train to Nibroc, (Drama Mark Lutwak recently staged Jo Roets' Cyrano for Cyrano's Playhouse in Anchorage. He was the Patricia Neal is without a doubt one of the most admired women of the American film, from Irene O’Garden has been included in Who’s Who of American Women since 2006. Her John Pielmeier began his career as an actor, working at Actors Theatre of Louisville, the Guthrie Gregory Pulver is currently Western Washington University Theatre Arts Chair and Associate Chilean-born author Guillermo Reyes’ plays include Chilean Holiday, Men on the Verge of Charles St. Clair is the Co-Creator and Director of last year’s production of August in April, Judith Stevens-Ly is a Director/Producer for the First Look Theatre Company in the Goldberg Aoise Stratford has received many awards for her plays including a Pinter Review Silver Medal Elizabeth Ware is well known to Alaska audiences through her work with Cyrano's Theatre Jayne Wenger is a director and dramaturg whose exclusive focus is on original material. Bryan Willis' work has been produced off-Broadway, on the London fringe, Y York’s third millennium plays include Eggs (People’s Light and Theatre Company 2008-2009) |
Program at the University of Idaho. He served as Idaho Repertory Theatre’s Artistic Director from 2001- 2004. He is a playwright, producer and director of theatre, and has worked in the entertainment industry as a Creative Consultant for The History Channel, Triage Entertainment, and for North by Northwest Productions, Netter Digital Entertainment and New Wave Entertainment. He served as a script reader for Mahagonny Pictures and is on the National Reading Committee for Native Voices at the Autry Museum of the American West. Robert has been a guest speaker at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, the University of the Arts, San Diego State University, Marquette University, Washington State University, the University of Maryland, Northern Illinois University, Bowling Green State University, Denison University, University of Nevada - Las Vegas, the University of Wisconsin - Madison, Howard University, University of Nebraska - Lincoln, Bradley University, Cal State - San Bernardino, Rockford College, and American University in Washington, D.C. His play The Lake (originally commissioned by RVC Studio Theatre, Rockford, IL; Mike Webb, Producing Director) received its Equity World Premiere at Philadelphia’s Walnut Street Theatre (Directed by Richard M. Parison, Bernard Havard, Producing Artistic Director), and was subsequently produced at the Mill Mountain Theatre (Jere Lee Hodgin, Producing Artistic Director) as part of the 2005 Norfolk Southern Festival of New Works. Other full-length plays include: Kissing (first presented at the Last Frontier Theatre Conference, 2006, Phoenix Theatre, 2007 New Works Festival, and Theatre Artists’ Studio, Phoenix, AZ 2008), The 22-Day Adagio (Mill Mountain Theatre 2004 Norfolk Southern Festival of New Works) and Front (winner of the 1996 Fourth Freedom Forum Peace Play Award; developed at Sundance Writer’s Lab) and numerous shorts, including Santa Fe, originally produced by Stageworks/Hudson (Laura Margolis, Producing Artistic Director) as part of the 2005 Play By Play Festival, Hudson, NY. The play has received subsequent productions at various theatres, including The Theatre Studio, Inc.’s Playtime Series in New York City, Madhouse Theatre in Philadelphia, Appetite Theatre in Chicago, the Kokopelli Theatre Company (Kari Mote, Artistic Director) at the Last Frontier Theatre Conference, and SLAMBoston, produced by Another Country Productions and Company One, Boston, MA. Robert’s new play Push was commissioned by Penn State School of Theatre and premiered in February, 2008.
Chickaloon in 1953. After receiving his BA (UAA), his MFA (UNC-Chapel Hill/PlayMakers Rep) and living in New York, he now enjoys the consistent weather (72º and Sunny) of Los Angeles. This year, he will be seen in the titular role in Warner Bros/Raw Feed film's Otis starring Daniel Stern, Illeana Douglas, and Kevin Pollak. Otis was an Official Selection at the South By Southwest Film Festival (SXSW) and was chosen for the opening night of the festival. The film has also been accepted into major film festivals in Cleveland, Boston, London and Wales. Mr. Christopher's previous film and television roles include M. Night Shymalan's Unbreakable, Law & Order, Ed and several award-winning short films. He has also appeared in national commercials. Although enjoying the mediums of film and television, theatre is Mr. Christopher's first love and new works of the theatre his true mistress. Off-Broadway he originated the roles of Nicholas Skeres in David Grimm's Kit Marlowe at the Public Theatre and the role of Charles Green in Ice Island: The Wait for Shackelton. Regional theatre credits include Lyman in Lanford Wilson's Redwood Curtain, Medvedenko in The Seagull, and the US Premiere of Amigos Blue Guitar at Perseverance Theatre. In Alaska, he is best known for his solo performances of Pounding Nails in the Floor with My Forehead and Drinking in America, both by Eric Bogosian. He also directed Sylvia by A.R. Gurney which performed at Cyrano's as well as the Last Frontier Theatre Conference. And this year marks the 20th anniversary of the UAA Theatre Department's production of Tracers (he played Little John), which went on to the Kennedy Center/ACTF festival as one of the best college productions of the year. One of his next projects is producing the film of Santa Fe by Robert Caisley (performed at last year's Conference). He is a proud member of Circle East, The Actors Network, Screen Actor's Guild, and Actor's Equity Association. He can be reached and more information found at his website,
and his mother, Peg, directed him in a number of plays while he was growing up in Virginia and Ohio. Frank trained at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, earned his BA in theatre at San Francisco State University where he performed street theatre, helped establish Pinecrest Theatre in the Sierra Nevadas, then went on to earn an MFA in acting at UC San Diego. Appearing in over 150 productions, Frank has worked Off-Broadway, with the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival, Chamber Repertory Theatre in Boston, Denver Center Theatre Company, and Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts in Solvang, California. His theatrical roles have ranged from Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream to Miss Havisham in Great Expectations to Scigolsch in Lulu. In Los Angeles, Frank has acted in productions at the Bilingual Foundation of the Arts and Los Angeles Theatre Company. Frank is a founding member of Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice, California, which has won over 25 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards. His performance as Mr. Peachum in The Beggars' Opera was honored as best supporting actor by LA Weekly. Frank's film work includes The Village, The Whole Ten Yards, Hope Spring, Hidalgo, Suspect Zero, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, The Majestic, Mobsters, The Last Boy Scout, Buddy, Alien Nation, Diggstown, The Blob, My Summer Story, and Wild at Heart, which won the Golden Palm Award at Cannes. Frank's most recent film, The Happening, directed by M. Night Shyamalan, opens June 13th. Frank is best known to television audiences as Horace Bing, the bumbling telegraph operator on CBS's Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. His extensive television appearances include guest-starring roles on Monk, Stargate Atlantis, HBO's Carnivale, Seventh Heaven, NYPD Blue, Star Trek: the Next Generation, and Hill Street Blues. Frank and his wife, Laura Gardner, reside in Los Angeles with his three children. He remains active in theatre while pursuing a film career.
(New York Theatre Workshop), Snapshot Silhouette (Minneapolis’ Children’s Theatre), Slide Glide the Slippery Slope (Humana, Mark Taper Forum), The Venus de Milo Is Armed (Alabama Shakespeare Festival), Breath, Boom (London's Royal Court Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, Yale Rep, Huntington Theatre and elsewhere), Force Continuum (Atlantic Theater Company), Splash Hatch on the E Going Down (New York Stage and Film, Baltimore's Center Stage, Yale Rep, London's Donmar Warehouse Theatre), Seeking the Genesis (Goodman Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club), Digging Eleven (Hartford Stage Company), Life by Asphyxiation (Playwrights Horizons), Wake Up Lou Riser (Delaware Theatre Company), Come Down Burning (American Place Theatre, Long Wharf Theatre). Awards include the VCCA Award for Excellence in the Arts, invitation to Hermitage Artists Retreat, Barbara Barondess MacLean Foundation Award, AT&T On Stage Award, Daryl Roth Creative Spirit Award, the Taper's Fadiman Award, National Endowment for the Arts/TCG, Kennedy Center Fund, New Professional Theatre Playwriting Award, and the Callaway Award. For her work on the fourth season of the HBO series The Wire, she received the Edgar Allan Poe Award. Tap the Leopard, inspired by her trip to Liberia at the end of the country's civil war, was workshopped at the Guthrie Theater and New York Theatre Workshop. Breath, Boom, Come Down Burning, Force Continuum, Seeking the Genesis, and Splash Hatch on the E Going Down are published by Dramatists Play Service. Kia is a member of the Dramatists Guild and an alumnus of New Dramatists.
works Ensemble Theater, which she co-founded in 1985. Based in Madison, Wisconsin, she is the author of 30 plays and her work has been performed across the United States and abroad. Recent productions include the April, 2008, performance of her play Tear Up the Front Page at Purdue University; the March, 2008, tour to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, of her play Source Code: Candide; and the February, 2008, tour of her play Garden Party to Canada. Her short play Just My Luck was part of the Break A Leg mini-ensemble theater festival which took place in Madison, Wisconsin's Overture Center for the Arts, in November, 2007. In the summer of 2007, The Mystery of the Missing Word, her children’s play, enjoyed 30 performances at venues across the Midwest, some of them with an awful lot of stairs. A member of the Dramatists Guild, Dresden received the Council for Wisconsin Writers Drama Awards in 2001, 2003 and 2006 and was a Finalist for the Yukon Pacific New Play Award in 1999. An experienced residency artist, Dresden devotes considerable time to working with young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, using a model residency format combining creative writing, movement and visual arts to boost literacy skills and so much more. In April, 2007 she taught playwriting and coached a college student theater group as part of a residency at the University of Wisconsin-Marathon County. She has served as a panelist at the Last Frontier Theater Festival since 2002.In Summerm 2008, a monologue from her play, Athena, Live!, will be published by Meriwether Publishing Ltd.
alumnus of Arizona State University, the founder and Artistic Director of Blue Roses Productions, Inc., NYC and Artistic Associate for Circle East Inc. (formerly the artists from Circle Rep), NYC. Off-Broadway, she has directed at the Lion Theatre and The American Place; Off-Off at Neighborhood Playhouse, manhattan theatresource, LaMama, Goldberg Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Chasama, Polaris North, Laurie Beecham Theater, to name a few. Regionally, her work has been seen at Arkansas Rep, White Birch, Sag Harbor, Pocono Playhouse, Long Wharf, Hartford Stage, Scranton Public, Fernwood, Valdez, Alaska and others. Her recent professional career is devoted to directing and producing New American Plays and the work of Tennessee Williams. Ms. Duricko has helped to develop, produce, and/or direct hundreds of new plays; including work by John Yearley, Tennessee Williams, Craig Lucas, Lanford Wilson, Alan Havis, Lisa Humbertson, Cara Corthron, Gary Giovannetti, Y York, Jon Klein, Guillermo Reyes and other emerging and seasoned writers. She has received drama critic awards for outstanding direction, A Cervantes Grant, a Meredith Harless Visiting Artist Endowment, and is the recipient of the Tennessee Williams Award, presented in Mississippi, for Outstanding Contributions Preserving, Promoting and Perpetuating the Work of Mr. Williams. She teaches Professional Scene Study classes for working actors; presents workshops for writers, directors and actors and when time allows, has guest directed at major universities across the country. Ms. Duricko is on the national advisory boards for the Last Frontier Theatre Conference and the Delta Tennessee Williams Festival in Mississippi, and is a member of the First Look Theatre Company at Tisch/NYU, and The Drama League. Erma is married to Dr. Allen Duricko and the mother Marissa and Jeff.
University of Alaska Anchorage. He founded the Indiana Shakespeare Festival and directed 16 of its main season productions. He also worked for the San Diego Junior Theatre and the California Shakespearean Festival. At UAA’s Department of Theatre and Dance, Edgecombe's productions of The Death of Von Richthofen as Witnessed From Earth, Somewhere in Between, and The Scarecrow won American College Theatre Festival Regional Awards. He is Past President of the Northwest Drama Conference. His book Actor Training During the Age of Shakespeare is published by Mellen Press. His play Libby, which he wrote and directed, toured nationally and received critical acclaim at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland. This production featured in the title role his wife, Elizabeth Ware. He has staged many plays which were showcased at Last Frontier Theatre Conference including A Delicate Balance and Three Tall Women. He has also directed many shows for Cyrano’s Playhouse in Anchorage, Alaska, including The Seagull, Hamlet, and Dinner with Friends. He directed several educational productions featuring scenes from Shakespeare’s greatest plays which are now touring Alaska secondary schools. David Edgecombe was flown to Washington D.C., where he was a Kennedy Center Honoree in recognition of his work in academic theatre. He received the UAA College of Arts and Sciences Public Service Award, and this year Dr. Edgecombe directed Othello which was funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Independence, Kansas, home of the world renowned William Inge Theatre Festival. For seven years, he was Producing Director of the Los Angeles Repertory Company, where he directed the acclaimed Los Angeles premiere of Sondheim and Weidman’s Assassins. Peter has worked in theatre across the country from Los Angeles to New York, San Diego to Minnesota, and Florida to Alaska. He has been a consultant with the National Endowment for the Arts, California Arts Council, Kansas Arts Commission, and Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation. He served on the Governing Counsel of the Association of Theatre For Higher Education (ATHE) and is a former Board Member of Los Angeles Stage Alliance and the Southern California Arts Coalition. Peter has taught theatre classes for the last 25 years, and gives workshops for students and professionals regularly throughout the country. His union memberships include Actors Equity Association, Screen Actor Guild, and Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers. As an actor, Peter has appeared in dozens of professional stage productions and had numerous appearances in film, television, and radio. His father is actor/director Robert Ellenstein and his brother David is Artistic Director of North Coast Repertory in Southern California. Peter holds an MFA in Theatre from Minnesota State University, Mankato.
Numbers, Saints and Sinners, Shark, The Bold and The Beautiful, Windfall, Commander-In-Chief with Geena Davis, The Unit with Dennis Haysbert, and Crossing Jordan with Miguel Ferrar. He has appeared in the films Family of Four, Chasing Tchaikovsky, Save Me (directed by Jennifer Getzinger), Each Other (directed by Roger Melvin), Breathing Room (by John Suits), and Material Girls with Hilary Duff (directed by Martha Coolidge). He has appeared in various commercials and prints ads for companies such as Wal-Mart, Boniva, Levitra, Oscar Mayer, Ameriprise, and Alegent Health. In November of 2007 he appeared on stage at the Elephant Theatre as Melvin Pike in The Life & Times of Tulsa Lovechild, and in April of 2007 he portrayed Tony in the world premier of E.M. Lewis’ Infinite Black Suitcase and in May 2006, he appeared in TheSpyAnts Theatre company production of The Reunion at the Howard Fine Acting Studio in Hollywood. He has an engineering degree and is a graduate of CSU, Cal Maritime and also has an MBA from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. While his true passion is acting, his other is the creation of math programs for use in early childhood education. He is extremely happy to be here in Valdez as a resource and to give back to the community which has helped him along his way to the red carpet. Thanks for having him.
last spring for her performance in Fighting Words, which opened at the Celtic Arts Center in Los Angeles and then transferred to the Millennium Center in Wales. She is on the faculty of the Howard Fine Studio, one of LA's finest professional acting programs. Laura trained at Boston University, Rutgers, and Herbert Berghof Studios, where she studied with Uta Hagen and Carol Rosenfeld. Laura appeared on Broadway in Smile. Her Off-Broadway credits include The Cocktail Hour with Nancy Marchand and Bruce Davison, Other People’s Money; and Welded, directed by Jose' Quintero. She toured nationally with Showboat, Doonesbury, Oliver, and My Fair Lady. Her extensive regional credits include the Arena Stage, Huntington Theatre, Cleveland Playhouse, McCarter Theatre, and the NC Shakespeare Festival. LA credits include Pasadena Playhouse, Will Geer Botanicum, Westwood Playhouse, Tiffany Theatre, Fountain Theatre, Deaf West, and the Road. You may have seen Laura and her actor husband, Frank Collison, recurring on the NBC hit My Name is Earl. Some of her other TV and film credits include Close to Home, Criminal Minds, The West Wing, Judging Amy, Boston Public, The Gilmore Girls, Party of Five, Callback the Movie, Profiles, L.A. Law, and Cheers. Watch for her in the feature Finding Red Cloud, soon to be released. She just shot a full length Broadway musical, Eclipse of the Heart, with music of Meatloaf and Bonnie Tyler. Laura teaches actors with disability for Media Access in Los Angeles and in San Francisco and was honored for her over 14 years of work with that community. She is a frequent guest teacher in New Mexico, teaching in Santa Fe, Albuequerque, and Alamogordo. She has taught in Wales at The Actors Workshop and the Academy of Musical Theatre, in NYC at HB Studios, Stella Adler Institute, and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Laura also taught at the NC School of the Arts, Circle Theatre, Palm Beach Community College, and the George Street Playhouse. In Los Angeles, she has taught at Santa Monica College, Actors' Center International, West Coast Ensemble, Women in Theatre, the Road Theatre and for the Screen Actors Guild Conservator. Laura resides in Los Angeles with Frank Collison, her 3 step children, and their 2 dogs, Mollie and Dino.
shows, including CSI, Scare Tactics, Madison Heights, the growing cult phenomenon Stephen King’s Night Surf, Noah’s Arc, and a recurring role in Breaking Up with Shannen Doherty. She also starred in the popular Bud Light “Ted Ferguson” campaign. Most recently, Darcy shot a starring role in the psychological thriller Drifter, a feature film directed by award-winning Dutch director Roel Reine. Darcy appears in a co-starring role in the film Behind the Smile, written and directed by Damon Wayans. She had a starring role in the gritty drama Dark Heart, written and directed by Kevin Lewis. She also appears in MGM's film Material Girls, opposite Anjelica Huston. Always close to the theater, this multi-talented actress has most recently written, directed and starred in the critically acclaimed stage production The Reunion at the Howard Fine Theater (Darcy has plans to shoot this project as an interactive webisode this year). She also starred in Art Brown's hit play Minding Goodman as the mentally challenged Cheryl Goodman and What I Heard About Iraq, the controversial play produced at the Fountain Theater which garnered international acclaim. Darcy is currently starring in a comedy web series that she wrote called Polly G., which is about a young woman who is in relationship trouble because she is a polygamist… in her mind. She is also writing and producing a comedy monster movie trilogy with her company, Sibling Rivalry, slated for production in 2009.
Pennsylvania, Michael Hood was professor of theatre at the University of Alaska Anchorage for 22 years. He was awarded the President's Award of the Northwest Drama Conference in 1994, and received the UAA Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1998. Five of his productions have won regional recognition from the KC/ACTF, most recently Zastrozzi: Master of Discipline for IUP in 2004. Mr. Hood has worked professionally on stage, in film, on radio and television, and has twice directed professionally in the Russian Far East. His production of True West, mounted in Yuzhno-Sahkalinsk in 1994, traveled to acclaim in Khabarovsk and later to Moscow, where it played the new stage at the Moscow Art Theatre in the fall of 1995. In 1997, his UAA production of A Piece of My Heart was performed by invitation at the PODIUM Festival in Moscow. His most recent publication (2000) appeared in Theater sans frontieres, a collection of critical essays on the work and process of Canadian director and animateur Robert Lepage. In 2003, Hood was elected to membership in the National Theater Conference.
League Best Play nomination), See Rock City (“In the Spirit of America” MacLean Foundation Award), and Gulf View Drive (LA Weekly and Ovation Award nominations). Published by Dramatists Play Service, the Trilogy played to critical acclaim last season both in Los Angeles and Off-Broadway. Other plays include As It Is In Heaven, about Kentucky Shakers, and Parhelia, a new work about the Bronte family. A member of the Dramatists Guild and an alumna of New Dramatists, Hutton has developed plays at 78th Street Theatre Lab, AtrainPlays, The Barrow Group, Circle East, Ensemble Studio Theatre, HERE and Rude Mechanicals. Her work has been presented throughout the world, including four times at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. She is a four-time Heideman Award finalist and three-time Samuel French Short Play winner. Residencies include New Harmony Project, Australian National Playwrights Conference, MacDowell Colony, VCCA and Yaddo. Currently the Tennessee Williams Fellow in Playwriting at Sewanee, a position she also held in 2005, Hutton is on the faculty of this summer’s Sewanee Writers’ Conference. Last Train to Nibroc will be produced by the Orange Tree Theatre in London in June.
artistic director for Honolulu Theatre for Youth for six years, directing 28 plays, including 15 world premieres, and developing several new play programs. Prior to and since HTY, he has been a freelance stage and video director in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, Seattle, and Hawai`i, developing and directing new plays at such theatres as New Dramatists, New York Theatre Workshop, Public Theatre, Kennedy Center New Visions/New Voices, New Harmony Project, Bonderman New Play Festival, Taller Latinoamericano, George Street Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, Seattle Group Theatre, A Contemporary Theatre, Seattle Children’s Theatre, First Stage Milwaukee, ChildsPlay Arizona, Annex Theatre, A.S.K. Theatre Projects, Southern Rep, and Kumu Kahua Theatre. He was founding director of The Road Show in L.A. and Theatre for Your Mother in the San Francisco Bay Area. He was the founding executive director Rain City Projects, a Pacific Northwest playwrights’ service organization; a producer, director, and writer of award-winning interactive media; a founding member of Theatre Puget Sound; and a trustee of the Hawai`i State Theatre Council. He is a member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers and currently plays accordion and keyboards for Kupa`aina.
her work as an Academy Award-winning actress to her heroic recovery from massive strokes. Ms. Neal got her first job as understudy for the two main female parts of Voice of the Turtle. She then accepted an offer from Lillian Hellman to play Tallulah Bankhead’s role of Regina in Another Part of the Forest, for which she received several awards, among them the Tony and the Drama Critics’ Award for Best New Actress. Her stage success in 1946 led to many offers from Hollywood where Ms. Neal signed with Warner Brothers and proceeded to make 13 movies in four years, among them John Loves Mary and The Hasty Heart with Ronald Reagan, The Fountainhead and Bright Leaf with Gary Cooper, Diplomatic Courier with Tyrone Power, and Operation Pacific with John Wayne. While appearing in films in both Hollywood and England, she returned intermittently to the stage, where she did The Children’s Hour, A Roomful of Roses, Suddenly Last Summer, and The Miracle Worker. She won the British Academy Award for In Harm’s Way with John Wayne, and both the British and American Academy Awards as Best Actress in 1964 for her performance with Paul Newman in Hud. After a miraculous recovery from her three massive strokes, Ms. Neal returned to her career and received an Academy Award nomination for The Subject Was Roses. Distinguished television roles including The Homecoming, The Lou Gehrig Story, and All’s Quiet on the Western Front, which garnered three Emmy nominations. More recently, she has been seen on television in the Emmy-winning Hallmark Hall of Fame’s production of Caroline, in addition to guest appearances on Little House on the Prairie, Murder She Wrote, and Heidi. She also co-starred with Shelley Winters in 1989 in An Unremarkable Life. In 1999, Ms. Neal was featured as the title character in Robert Altman’s Cookie’s Fortune, a role which has received rave reviews and acclaim, internationally. Today, Ms. Neal continues her acting career, in addition to traveling and lecturing extensively. She is a regular participant in the Theatre Guild’s Theatre-At-Sea programs which have taken her to many exotic ports-of-call. Additionally, she appeared on stage in a production of A.R. Gurney’s play, Love Letters. Her autobiography, As I Am, was published in 1988 by Simon & Schuster and has been reprinted all over the world. It was most recently reprinted through the Theatre Guild in 2003. In 2007, Patricia Neal shot Flying By with Billy Rae Cyrus, scheduled for release in 2008.
critically-acclaimed play Women On Fire (Samuel French) played to sold-out houses Off-Broadway at the Cherry Lane Theatre, and was nominated for a 2004 Lucille Lortel award for Best Solo Show. Her new play Little Heart won her a Berilla Kerr Playwriting Fellowship. O’Garden’s writing is anthologized with Eleanor Roosevelt, Maya Angelou, Gloria Steinem and others in The Greatness Of Girls (Andrews McMeel). Included is an excerpt from her hardcover book, Fat Girl (Harper San Francisco). O’Garden won the Gold Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Best Book Award 2004 for her latest children’s book, The Scrubbly Bubbly Carwash (Harper). Her first children's book, Maybe My Baby (Harper) has sold over 83,000 copies. Irene’s poetry is found in many literary journals and anthologies. In 1987, she created a performing literary magazine called The Art Garden. She has continued to produce, host and write for it ever since. Last fall, she and her husband John Pielmeier celebrated thirty years together. Please visit 
Theater, Milwaukee Rep, Alaska Rep, Baltimore’s Center Stage, and the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights’ Conference. It was at the O’Neill that his play Agnes of God was first staged. A co-winner of the Great American Play contest, Agnes premiered professionally at Actors Theatre of Louisville, which production was followed by several regional productions and a seventeen month run on Broadway. His other plays include Voices in the Dark, produced on Broadway and winner of the 1999 Edgar Award for Best Play; Haunted Lives, a collection of one-acts published by Dramatists Play Service; Courage, a one-man show about J.M. Barrie, produced at the Lambs’ Theatre off-Broadway and filmed for public television (performed by the author); The Boys of Winter, produced on Broadway; Sleight of Hand, produced on Broadway; Jass, presented at the O’Neill Playwrights’ Conference; Impassioned Embraces, a collection of short plays and monologues, published by Dramatists Play Service; Steeplechase The Funny Place, a musical (with music and lyrics by Matty Selman) workshopped at the New Harmony Project; Young Rube, a musical (also with Mr. Selman), workshopped at the Gathering at Bigfork in Bigfork, Montana and first produced at the Repertory Theatre of Saint Louis; Willi, a one-man show based on the speeches of mountaineer Willi Unsoeld, which premiered (and was performed by the author) at A Contemporary Theatre in Seattle (breaking box office records); The Classics Professor, workshopped at The Gathering at Bigfork and at CAP21, New York City (and performed by the author); and Slow Dance With A Hot Pickup, a musical with Mr. Selman workshopped at the New Harmony Project, Sarasota Shakespeare Festival, and the Musical Workshop at Indiana University. He has been a writer-in-residence at the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Ossabaw Island, The Gathering at Bigfork, and the New Harmony Project, and has received alumni awards from both his Alma Maters. In 2003 he was inducted into the Blair County, Pennsylvania Arts Hall of Fame.
For Choices of the Heart, a television movie he wrote about the slain American missionaries in El Salvador, he received a Christopher Award, the Humanitas Award, a Writers Guild of America nomination for Best Teleplay, and an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas. He has written many movies for television, including Sins of the Father (which broke viewer records when it was first aired on FX; also nominated for the Humanitas Award and a Writers Guild of America Award); The Happy Face Murders (which broke viewer records when it was first aired on Showtime); The Stranger Within; The Last P.O.W.: The Bobby Garwood Story; The Shell Seekers; Through The Eyes Of A Killer; Reunion (co-written with Ron Bass); Submerged (co-writer; received a special screening at the White House, attended by Mr. Pielmeier); Original Sins (which he also co-produced); a miniseries adaptation of Dominick Dunne’s An Inconvenient Woman; Dodson’s Journey; Forbidden Territory (National Geographic’s premiere television film on Stanley’s search for Livingstone); We Are Circus, an episode of Showtime’s series on the rescue efforts of Righteous Gentiles during the Holocaust; a new adaptation of Flowers For Algernon; Living With The Dead, a miniseries based on James van Praagh’s life and experiences; and the critically acclaimed and Emmy-nominated Hitler: The Rise of Evil. He wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of Agnes of God (Writers Guild nomination for Best Screen Adaptation) and co-wrote the narration for National Geographic’s IMAX film Mysteries of Egypt. His latest teleplays include a new adaptation of Sybil starring Jessica Lange and Tammy Blanchard, which will premiere on CBS in 2008; an adaptation of Kim Edwards’ The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, which will premiere on Lifetime in March of 2008; an adaptation of Gifted Hands, the inspiring autobiography of Doctor Ben Carson, which will air on TNT in May of 2008, and Chasing The Devil, a miniseries on the 20-year search for the Green River Killer, in which he also is acting, which will air on Lifetime in Spring of 2008.
Professor of Costume Design. He teaches courses in Costume Design, Costume History, Millinery, and Puppetry. He is the Head of Design at WWU and the Artistic Director of WWU Summerstock. Gregory is also an active director/choreographer/actor in the Northwest. His recent directing titles include Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, The King and I, The Suppliant Women, The Impossible Marriage, and Nunsense I, II, IV and V. He recently appeared as Harold Hill in The Music Man, Queen Aggravian in Once Upon a Mattress, Howard Liszt in Mushuggah Nuns, The Pirate King in Pirates of Penzance, and Captain Morgan in the new movie Kung Fu Joe. Mr. Pulver holds an MFA in Costume Design and Choreography from Humboldt State University. He is the 1993 Kennedy Center American College theatre Festival National Costume Design winner for his work on The Three Penny Opera, and the recipient of the 1992 KCACTF Meritorious Achievement Award for Choreography for Cabaret. He is the past Design Chair of KCACTF Region VII – Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado – and has been a production and design competition respondent for KCACTF for many years, responding to theatre work from around the nation.
a His-Panic Breakdown, Deporting the Divas, Miss Consuelo, The Seductions of Johnny Diego, and Places to Touch Him, among others. New plays include We Lost it at the Movies, recently featured in Arkansas Repertory Theater's New Voices at the River project, Men on the Verge 2 which was published by the quarterly Gestos at UC Irvine, the historical comedy-drama Madison, which is being developed for a production at Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey in late 2008, The Suspects, which premiered at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, and Sunrise at Monticello, which also premiered at Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey in October, 2005. Chilean Holiday was produced at Actors Theatre of Louisville, and published in Humana Festival ’96: The Complete Plays (Smith and Kraus). Men on the Verge won Theatre L.A.’s Ovation Award for Best World Premiere Play and Best Production, 1994, and has since played across the country, including New York City, where it won the 1996 Emerging Playwright Award and received an Off-Broadway production by Urban Stages at the 47th Street Playhouse. Mother Lolita was also produced off-Broadway by Urban Stages in 2000. Reyes received his Masters Degree in Playwriting from University of California, San Diego. He’s currently Associate Professor of Theatre at Arizona State University in Tempe and head of the playwriting program. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild.
A Tribute to August Wilson. A graduate of The Fairmount School for the Creative and Performing Arts, he is a seasoned artist with over 400 major productions in theater and film to his credit. His theater work includes: (Acting) Seven Guitars, Fences, Fraternity, Suicide in B Flat, Greater Tuna, The Promise, J.B., The House of Blue Leaves, No Exit, The Glass Menagerie, The Doctor in Spite of Himself, Hot L Baltimore, Catch 22, Ovid's Metamorphoses, El Grande de Coca Cola, Medal of Honor Rag, as well as the title role in Othello; (Directing) Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, The Impresario, The Threepenny Opera, Faust, Tosca, La Traviata, Carmen, The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, Ground Zero Club, Horowitz and Mrs. Washington, The Meeting, Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, A Raisin in the Sun, Back Home, Jitney, The Colored Museum, Gunplay, Underneath the Lintel, Bee-Luther-Hatchee, Three Men on a Horse, Gallows Humor, Death and the Maiden, Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Momma’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feeling So Sad, and Suzan-Lori Parks' Venus and Topdog/Underdog. Among his many film and video credits are: With These Hands, an Emmy Award-winning special for NBC, Beauty and the Beast, a three time Emmy Award-winning special for PBS which he co-authored, produced, and directed. Mr. St. Clair co-founded the Fairmount Theatre of the Deaf, and with him as Artistic Director, F.T.D. toured the United States and Canada as well as appearing twice at New York's Lincoln Center Outdoor Theatre Festival. Mr. St. Clair, is on the faculty of the Interdisciplinary Arts and Performance Department of Arizona State University where he teaches acting and directing, performs, directs and serves as Technical Director.
Department of Dramatic Writing at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. In 2006-7, she was the Associate Artistic Director of this company. Before coming to the United States, she was Artistic Director of Hysterick Theatre Company in Tokyo and acted, produced, and directed for this and several other theatre companies there. In New York, she has been a member of the director's group at the Looking Glass Theatre, and has directed at the Ensemble Studio Theatre Institute. In the pursuit of developing new plays she has directed for the New York and Philadelphia Fringe Festivals, at the Manhattan Theatre Club, the BRIC in Brooklyn, the HERE Arts Centre, and the Manhattan Theatre Source. She is currently involved with the Kennedy Centre American College Theatre Festival as a director, dramaturg, and respondent for the New Plays Program. In March of 2008, she directed the premier production of Anton's Women by Donna Banicevich Gera at the Maidment Theatre Auckland.
(2004), an American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award nomination (2002), The Yukon Pacific Playwriting Award (2000) The Gloria Allen Peter Award (2007), The Alan Minieri Award (2003), The Hudson River Classics New Play Award (2005) and finalist for the Humana Festival’s Heideman Award (2003). Her work has been produced in Australia, Italy, Canada, England, and throughout the USA. Will and The Ghost, a one-act play co-written with her father, Conal Condren, will premiere in Belgium this summer. Nationally, she has had more than 70 productions of her work at colleges and theatres all over the country. Most recently she has been in development with her new one-woman play, The Unfortunates, which received a workshop production as part of the 2008 Harriett Lake Festival. Ms. Stratford has been a writer in residence at the Byrdcliffe Arts Colony, and is a founding member of San Francisco’s Three Wise Monkeys Theatre Company. She serves regularly as a respondent for KCACTF and is a member of the Dramatists Guild.
Company and Edgeware Productions. Her one-woman show Libby played throughout Alaska and on tour in the Lower 48, at the Edinburgh Fringe (earning a 4-star review in The Scotsman), and most recently at the Athens Festival of Making Theatre. Recent roles include Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Arkadina in The Sea Gull and Amanda in Adam's Rib. In conjunction with CTC, she has written and administered two Shakespeare In American Communities grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, touring A Midsummer Night's Dream in 2004 and this past winter Othello to towns in South Central Alaska. She is dedicated to introducing young people to Shakespeare through workshops and school residencies in Alaska. She has often served as a panelist in Valdez and has been seen on stage at the Conference in Three Tall Women, The American Dream, A Delicate Balance, Libby and Lake Hollywood.
Throughout over 25 years of professional theater experience she has been dedicated to the development, direction and production of original plays and solo performances. Her work has been recognized with numerous awards. She is the past Artistic Director of the Bay Area Playwrights Foundation (1995-2000) and was the Artistic Director of Women’s Ensemble of New York for eight years. She is currently collaborating on projects with The Deborah Slater Dance Theater of San Francisco, Liebe Wetzel, of “Lunatique Fantastique” and is the director and dramaturge for an upcoming stage adaptation of the Anne Lamott novel Hard Laughter. In January, she directed Deke Weaver’s Crimes and Confessions of Kip Knutzen: A Hockey Way of Knowledge, which toured the mid-west. She directed Sara Felder’s solo shows June Bride and Schtick!; June Bride is currently touring across the country. She has developed the emerging work of acclaimed playwrights such as Dan Hoyle, Naomi Izuka, Nilo Cruz, Christine Evans, Anne Galjour, Holly Hughes, Brighde Mullins, Brenda Wong Aoki, and Kate Bornstein, among many others. She has collaborated with Claire Chafee on numerous projects, including the original direction of the world premiere of Why We Have a Body at the Magic Theater. She teaches annual workshops on New Play Development at ArtWorkshop International in Assisi, Italy (artworkshopintl.com). She is a core member of “AlterTheater” in San Rafael, California and a member of Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas.
throughout the U.K., Israel, and in regional theaters across the U.S. and Canada. His adaptation of the 1939 Federal Theatre Project script, Timber (lyrics & music by Edd Key), was featured on NPR and toured for seven years with Seattle Public Theater. His newest full-length, John Lennon’s Gargoyle, has been read, workshopped, and produced at a number of fine institutions, including ACT, New York Theater Workshop, Seattle Rep, Theater Schmeater and the Univ. of New Mexico. His one-act, Sophie, was a hit at the 2002 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and later premiered on BBC Radio. Sophie received its U.S. its Equity premiere in Pittsburgh with the Unseam’d Shakespeare Company. Other commissions include a feature length screenplay, Centerville (with Matt Farnsworth), Northwest Passage (FringeACT, workshopped at ACT), a stage adaptation of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s utopian novella, Herland (lyrics & music by Edd Key), and a series of actor improv outlines for the Pacific Science Center’s Dead Sea Scrolls touring exhibition. Bryan is the proud recipient of a Theater Fellowship from Artist Trust and has also received the Kennedy Center Gold Medallion for his work with the American College Theater Festival. He currently teaches Playwriting at Western Washington University. Bryan also serves as Playwright-in-Residence for the Northwest Playwrights Alliance and has previously worked in literary depts. of many theaters, including Playwrights Horizons and Lincoln Center (NYU's Playwright-in-Residence), where he had the great honor of loaning his typewriter to David Mamet. Most recently, his play Evolution of Chaos was featured in a production that toured England and Northwest Passage received a reading in Anchorage at Cyrano's. Bryan is delighted to return to Valdez for his second year with the Conference.
Getting Near to Baby (2007-8 People’s Light and Theatre Company) River Rat and Cat (2006 ChildsPlay, Arizona premiere); Nothing is the Same (TCG-Pew Charitable Trust, 2004 Kennedy Center New Visions/New Voices Festival, 2004 Honolulu Theatre for Youth premiere, Dramatic Publishing); Fork in the Road (Dramatic Publishing); The Forgiving Harvest (2004 AT&T: Onstage Award, 2004 People’s Light and Theatre Company premiere, 2006 AATE Distinguished Play Award, Dramatic Publishing); Mask of the Unicorn Warrior (Rockefeller Foundation grant, 2001 Seattle Children’s Theatre premiere, Dramatic Publishing); Othello (4-character hip hop adaptation, 2002 Honolulu Theatre for Youth premiere, Dramatic Publishing); Krisit (2001 Primary Stages, NYC premiere, Broadway Play Publishing); The New Dark Clarity, Bleachers in the Sun, ...and LA is Burning (New Harmony Project, 2007), and Framed. Earlier work is happily still produced in theatres across the country and is available from Broadway Play Publishing, Dramatic Publishing, St. Martin’s Press, Smith and Kraus, or from Carl Mulert at The Gersh Agency. In June, 2006, Y received the Hawai`i State Award for Literature. She is a proud alumna of New Dramatists, member of the Dramatists Guild, and still lives with Mark Lutwak to whom most things are dedicated.