News
East
Albee-Less,
By Catherine Stadem
Valdez, Alaska (Back Stage) -- E dward Albee didn't attend, nor did John Guare, Romulus Linney, or Lawrence Sacharow -- all former regulars at the Last Frontier Theatre Conference in Valdez, Alaska. Yet the 13th annual confab, which ended June 25, went off without a hitch, attracting more than 70 emerging playwrights and about 200 theatre professionals and audience members from around the world for eight intensive days of play readings, discussions, and workshops.
"It's more comprehensive this year," said playwright Wayne Crome, based in E dwardsville , Ill. , and attending his third conference. "Our featured artists are interacting with all of us more in the hallways, everywhere."
The conference had to reinvent itself after the departure of co-founder (with Albee) Jo Ann C. McDowell, former president of Prince William Sound Community College , which hosts the event. When McDowell left, so did many of the theatrical luminaries who had attended in the past.
And in the past, Crome admitted, just the chance to see theatre celebrities -- Marian Seldes, Constance Congdon, Paula Vogel -- had attracted him to Valdez . But after experiencing this year's "reborn" conference, he realized that the celebrities had been "the main event and we, the playwrights, were sort of the sideshow." A three-time winner of the St. Louis Playwrights Festival, Crome brought a new work to this year's meeting: "Moondancing," a well-received comedy about the tragedy lurking beneath the surface of any relationship.
Stepping into McDowell's shoes was Dawson Moore . A playwright, producer, actor, and director in his own right, Moore apprenticed with McDowell and stated that he was ready to take over the leadership of one of the nation's few venues for new-play development.
Moore also brought his own sensibility to the event, eliminating the Play Lab's two-tier system, in which a select group of "top" plays were read before the celebrity guests, while the conference's other plays were consigned to a "development workshop." "This year it's a populist system," he announced at a pre-conference gathering on June 18. "The playing field is now level."
While the total number of attendees dropped to about 300 -- in 2004, more than 500 people attended, including 110 playwrights -- this year's more intimate conference offered many more opportunities for one-on-one discussions.
Among the first-timers was playwright Lia Romeo, who just graduated from Princeton University and didn't miss what she'd never experienced. "I'm just starting out in this whole playwriting thing," she explained during a break between readings and workshops. "It's been this thing between me and the computer." Her play "When the Gods Speak," blending Greek tragedy with high comedy, was praised by panelists and audience members alike.
Romeo said that workshops such as "Myth Adaptation for Playwrights" with Laura Shamas, "Dramatic Structure" with Gary Garrison, "Acting in New Plays and Creating a Role" with Jayne Wenger, and "Finding the Voice Within" with E laine Romero taught her things she never learned at Princeton . "I'm getting a sense of how [being a playwright] works in the world," she added.
"What I absolutely loved is you can go to a reading by a 72-year-old playwright and then to one by an 18-year-old," said panelist Garrison, who is on the faculty of the dramatic writing program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. " E veryone is treated the same, and that includes the guest artists."
Featured artist and Play Lab panelist Wenger -- former artistic director of the Bay Area Playwrights Foundation and the Women's E nsemble of New York -- said she came to Valdez because friends had told her the conference was not to be missed. " E veryone in the arts is hungry to share their common frustrations and learn from one another," she said, "and here playwrights of all experience levels can share their concerns and their fears."
Although this year's scripts had no dominant theme, many attendees commented that the caliber of the writing was uniformly higher than in previous years. Among the standout works were Mary Roseanne Katzke's "Dancing for the Hunter," Atar Hadari's "The Lonesome Death of Janis Joplin," Geralyn Horton's "The 11:08 Brighton From London/Victoria," Jennifer Williams ' " E dge," Angela Gant's "Conversations With the Dearly Departed," Matt Casarino's "The Boy Who Was Born With a Tail," Tom Smith's "Autumn's Child," and Jay Hanagan's "Ships."
Panelist and playwright Aoise Stratford, attending for the fifth time, said that while she missed seeing theatre artists "at the top of their game" -- August Wilson reading his own works, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara reading Albee's "Counting the Ways" -- she appreciated the conference's new emphasis on hands-on, interactive workshops.
Moore said that plans are in place for the 2006 conference and that a call for submissions will go out later this year.