Ashland New Plays Festival Announces Winning Playwrights for ANPF 2019

Four new plays chosen for annual Fall Festival supporting new works for the stage

More info: https://www.ashlandnewplays.org/

Ashland, Oregon – In its 28^thseason, Ashland New Plays Festival will present four playwrights’ new works at its flagship annual event ANPF 2019 from October 16–20 in Ashland at the Unitarian Center, 87 Fourth Street.

“I’m excited about our four winning plays and can’t wait to share them with audiences in October,” ANPF’s Artistic Director Kyle Haden said, “This was the deepest pool of finalists we’ve had in my tenure at ANPF, but these four plays stood out. The stories are all very different, but are all well-crafted and will stick with you.”

The ANPF 2019 winners are:

Starter Pistol by Michael Gotch

Michael Gotch for Starter Pistol

Synopsis: Deer season. Somewhere in a dying small town of Brave New America, an unsung mother, wife and breadwinner is making sure she and her family have enough venison chili to survive the approaching winter. But when a stranger comes to dinner, can they survive the secrets buried in their past and the reckoning to come?

Michael Gotch is a playwright, actor, director and teacher who lives in Delaware. He is a founding member of The REP, the professional resident company at the Roselle Center for the Arts at the University of Delaware, where he also teaches and has directed, written and performed in over 50 productions since its inaugural season. In addition to Starter Pistol’s selection at ANPF 2019, it was a semifinalist for both the 2019 Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference and the 2019 Blue Ink Playwriting Award. It will have a workshop and reading this fall at Westport Country Playhouse’s 2019 New Works Circle and will receive its world premiere in February of 2020.

Pelicans by David Johnston

David Johnston for Pelicans

Synopsis: Four men are gathered at the beach: a father, two adult sons and one grandson. They drink beer, crush cans, birdwatch and argue about global warming. They are awaiting the arrival of their cousin Margaret. She comes, carrying a beer in her purse and dragging an oxygen tank across the sand, setting in motion an absurd, dark comedy about death, family and home.

David Johnston is an award-winning playwright, librettist and screenwriter based in New York City. His plays and operas have been performed and read at the New Group, Moving Arts, Washington National Opera, Houston Grand Opera, and more. He is a member of Actors Equity, Dramatists Guild, BMI Librettists Workshop, ASCAP, the Actors Studio’s Playwright/Director’s Workshop, Charles Maryan’s Playwrights/Directors Workshop, and is an alumni artist of American Lyric Theatre. Since 2012, David has been the executive director of Exploring the Metropolis, Inc., a NYC-based nonprofit focused exclusively on workspace issues for performing artists, organizations and facilities.

The Way North by Tira Palmquist

Tira Palmquist for The Way North

Synopsis: When a lost, cold and very pregnant young woman stumbles on to her rural homestead in the Minnesota wilderness, Freddy Hansondoesn’t hesitate to take her in. It’s the right thing to do, and as the county’s former Sheriff, Freddy has dedicated her life to protecting and serving others. But when her new guest turns out to be a Sudanese refugee making a run for the Canadian border, what it means to protect and to serve becomes a more complicated, and far more dangerous, question.

Tira Palmquist is known for plays that merge the personal, the political and the poetic. Based in Irvine, California, she teaches creative writing at the Orange County School of the Arts. She is a member of the Playwrights Union, the Anteaus Theater’s Playwrights Lab and the Dramatists Guild. She also works as a director and dramaturg, including at Seven Devils Playwright Conference, where she first developed The Way North. The Way North was also a finalist for the 2019 Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, the 2019 Blue Ink Playwriting Award, an honorable mention on the 2019 Kilroys List, and was part of the Pioneer Theatre Company’s 2019 Play-by-Play New Play Reading Series.

The Night Climber by Joshua Rebell

Joshua Rebell for The Night Climber

Synopsis: When a #MeToo op-ed piece about his affairs with female students goes viral, a beloved Ivy League college professor faces an impossible dilemma: save his job by coming clean, or save his relationship with his daughter, whose future is at risk over his admission of one particular long-ago affair—her mentor.

Joshua Rebell is a New York City based playwright and screenwriter. He is thrilled to be returning to ANPF – where his play Omission was a winner in 2012. Some of his other plays include Embraceable You (The Tamarind Theatre, Los Angeles), Gatsby in Hollywood (The Met Theatre, Los Angeles), Black Tie Affairs (The Met Theatre), and Preying On Puritans (Sacred Fools, Los Angeles). Additionally, his plays have received readings and workshops with Capital Repertory Theatre, the Ensemble Studio Theatre-L.A., and the Dorset Theatre Festival. Rebell is a graduate of Dartmouth College, a Stowe Story Labs alum, and a member of the Writers Guild and the Dramatists Guild.

The winning playwrights will travel to Ashland for the festival week with receptions, rehearsals, a playwriting workshop, and other festivities that culminate with dramatic readings of their plays.

ANPF offers the unique opportunity for playwrights to develop their previously unproduced works by providing skilled directors and world-class actors, many from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Southern Oregon University’s Theatre Department, under guidance from ANPF’s artistic team and ANPF Host Playwright Beth Kander. Talkbacks with audiences follow each performance.

“The week I spent in Ashland [at the Fall Festival] was one of the best weeks in my life as a playwright,” said two-time ANPF-winning playwright Stephanie Alison Walker, “From the moment my play was selected for the festival, I felt like I was in good hands. Our team beautifully brought my play to life. The audiences were such careful listeners and so committed to sharing feedback. I left with more confidence in my play and many more friends than when I arrived.”

Ticket sales for ANPF 2019 will open to the public in September. ANPF members receive advance access and discounts on tickets. Visit www.ashlandnewplays.org to learn more about the Fall Festival and ANPF membership benefits. A special note to playwrights: script submissions for consideration at next year’s ANPF 2020 will open on July 15, 2019.

ANPF also sincerely congratulates the twelve finalists, listed below:

Harbor by Liz Appel

White Party by Brent Askari

This Holy and Unruly Cause by David Beardsley

The Captives by Barbara Blumenthal-Ehrlich

Signature Photo by Michael Bucklin

Even Flowers Bloom In Hell, Sometimes by Franky Gonzalez

Up The Ladder, Down The Slide by David Valdes Greenwood

Last Dance by Suzanne Logan

Hitch by James McLindon

Visionaries by Mark Rigney

Pasado Mañana by Paul Stein

The Three O’Clock Briefing by Bo Wilson