Icicle Creek New Play Festival Adds Two New Workshops to Line-Up

The Icicle Creek New Play Festival (formerly known as the Icicle Creek Theatre Festival) will add two new workshops to its line-up in addition to featuring two plays written by esteemed playwright Steven Dietz (Becky's New Car) and Carly Mensch (TV's "Weeds" and "Nurse Jackie").

Each August for the past seven years, the Icicle Creek New Play Festival has brought new plays to Icicle Creek Center for the Arts and ACT Theatre as part of the Central Heating Lab. Three of those plays went on to win the Steinberg Award - the top award for plays produced outside of New York City.

BLOOMSDAY, written by Steven Dietz - Amid the wit and charm of Dublin and against the backdrop of James Joyce's masterwork, Ulysses, an American man returns to find the woman who first captured his heart 30 years earlier.

THE CHANGE ROOM, written by Carly Mensch - An aging professor who cannot seem to find his gym locker is thrown into an existential tailspin, pulling in old foes and new friends. This one-act comic looks at minds and bodies and takes a head-on look at men's attitudes toward their bodies at different phases of their lives, examining our fatalism, our bodily frailty, and the Greek Classics.

Steven Dietz's thirty-plus plays have been seen at regional theatres across the country as well as Off-Broadway, and in twenty countries internationally. He is a two-time recipient of the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award (Fiction, Still Life with Iris), and a two-time finalist for the Steinberg New Play Award (Last of the Boys, Becky's New Car). He received the Edgar Award for Best Mystery Play for Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure; and the PEN USA West Award in Drama for Lonely Planet. Other widely-produced plays include Yankee Tavern, Shooting Star, Jackie & Me, Inventing van Gogh, God's Country, Private Eyes, and The Nina Variations.

Carly Mensch's plays include Oblivion (Westport, Steppenwolf First Look, Playwrights Horizons commission), Now Circa Then (Ars Nova, TheatreWorks), All Hail Hurricane Gordo (Humana Festival, Cleveland PlayHouse) and Len, Asleep in Vinyl (2nd Stage/Uptown Series). She has developed work at Playwrights Horizons, Manhattan Theatre Club, Huntington Theatre, The Kennedy Center, Marin Theatre Co., N.Y. Stage & Film, Center Theatre Group and Ars Nova, where she was the 2008 Playwright-in-Residence as well as a founding member of Play Group. Ms. Mensch wrote for three seasons on the Showtime original series, "Weeds." She is currently a producer on "Nurse Jackie" and writing a play for The Civilians' R&D Group.

For Icicle Creek Center for the Arts, Mr. Dietz will direct his own play BLOOMSDAY, while one of Seattle's great directors, Allison Narver (The Clean House) will direct THE CHANGE ROOM.

Writer's Workshops Information
Icicle Creek Center for the Arts proudly offers two new workshops by two of America's premier stage and screen writers as part of The Icicle Creek New Play Festival 2014.

• Friday, August 15, 2014-With Carly Mensch
  • 1-4PM-Attend an exclusive rehearsal of Ms. Mensch's new play, The Change Room, being workshopped at Icicle Creek
  • 7-8:30PM-Attend an exclusive workshop with Ms. Mensch on screen writing in the beautiful Canyon Wren Recital Hall
• Saturday, August 16, 2014-With Steven Dietz
  • 10:30AM - 12PM-Attend an exclusive workshop with Mr. Dietz on playwriting in the beautiful Canyon Wren Recital Hall
  • 1-4PM-- Attend an exclusive rehearsal of Mr. Dietz's new play, Bloomsday, being workshopped at Icicle Creek

Sunday, August 17, 2014 - Leavenworth, Snowy Owl Theater, THE CHANGE ROOM at 1PM and BLOOSMDAY presented at 7PM

• Tuesday, August 19, 2014 - Seattle, ACT's Bullitt Cabaret, THE CHANGE ROOM presented at 7PM
• Wednesday, August 20, 2014 - Seattle, ACT's Bullitt Cabaret, BLOOMSDAY presented at 7PM

Tickets are $12 per play or $20 for both plays. To purchase tickets or to register for writer's workshops, visit icicle.org or call the box office at (509) 548-6347 x47. To view a play in Seattle, call the ACT Theatre at (206) 292-7676.

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