id Theater Returns to McCall with 17th Seven Devils Playwrights Conference

Now celebrating its 20th year, id Theater returns to McCall, Idaho with the Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, with events from June 8 to 17 at McCall's Alpine Playhouse. This will be the 17th year for the Conference, which will host nine playwrights from all corners of the United States whose work will be developed and presented to the public free of charge during the Conference.

"Seven Devils is very much a public event," says Conference Artistic Director Jeni Mahoney. "Whether you're participating as an artist or an audience member, your presence becomes an important part of the playwrights' process. That's part of what makes coming to a play at the Conference a unique experience."

This year's special events include a free playwriting workshop with Featured Artist Elaine Romero, an evening of plays by McCall-Donnelly High School students, and "Insta-Play," an event in which community members are guided through the writing of a short play which is then presented publicly that same evening.

The 2017 playwrights, who were chosen from over 450 submissions by playwrights from all over the country, include: Featured Artist Elaine Romero (Modern Slave), Patrick Gabridge (Drift), Steph Del Rosso (Flee), Kyle John Schmidt (The Secretary), Manuel Zarate (Stroke), Isabella D'Esposito (Horizon Three), Dayna Smith (The Burnouts) and the team of Matthew Cameron Clark and Dwayne Blackaller, both of Boise Contemporary Theater, who will be developing their play Rabbit/Moon.

Seven Devils is a project of id Theater and is presented in partnership with the Alpine Playhouse, which has hosted the Conference and its series of free events as a gift to the community since its inception in 2001. "We couldn't do it without the Alpine," says id co- Artistic Director, Sheila McDevitt. "It's so much more than just a space to us; for two decades, it has provided us with a true home." Long time supporter Idaho First Bank also serves as a 2017 Conference Partner.

This year's plays join an illustrious list of plays developed over the course of the past 16 years, including Samuel D. Hunter's award-winning play The Whale and Eric Coble's The Velocity of Autumn, which went on to Broadway. Plays developed at the Conference have also garnered numerous awards such as the M. Elizabeth Osborn Award (Veils by Tom Coash), The John Gassner Playwriting Award (Faith by James McLindon), The Woodward/Newman Drama Award (Lemonade by Mark Krause), and the ACTF/Kennedy Center National Student Playwriting Award (In the Sawtooths by Dano Madden).

All Conference events are free and open to the public at all times. More information about schedules, events and travel can be found at: www.idtheater.org/2017-conference.html.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS - 2017 Seven Devils Playwrights Conference

All events are free and start at 7:30pm at the Alpine Playhouse unless otherwise noted

Thursday, June 8: Plays by Students from McCall-Donnelly High School

An evening of new work written by the community's own vibrant and talented students. Co-produced by the Alpine Playhouse.

Friday, June 9: MODERN SLAVE by Featured Artist Elaine Romero

When Andrea finds a hand-scrawled note from a Chinese sweatshop worker in the lining of her designer coat, she sets off on a passionate journey to free him. Little does she know that this journey to freedom will take her away from those she loves and down a rabbit hole of globalization and into the complicated world of modern slavery hidden in plain sight.

Saturday, June 10- 2PM: HORIZON THREE by Isabella D'Esposito

Commander Georgia Lawson is orbiting Neptune in complete isolation- except for her robot Andy. But when Andy's capabilities begin to exceed its own design, Georgia's mission hurtles dangerously off course, putting them directly in the path of an alien on the run. Can Georgia set aside her mission and set them all on a course to survival? Or will they be lost in space forever?

Saturday, June 10: DRIFT by Patrick Gabridge

In the aftermath of a deadly pesticide drift, two very different families on very different farms struggle to overcome overwhelming loss of life, land, and love. Can they find a way to move forward, or will the force of their grief shatter them completely?

Monday, June 12: INSTA-PLAY!

One of our most popular events is back again- come write a play with us! Just show up at 6:00 and allow us to guide you through the process of writing a short play, rehearsing it, and then mounting it for the warmest audience ever! Or just come at 7:30 and be a part of the warmest audience ever as you enjoy an evening of the freshest, newest theater you've ever seen!

Wednesday, June 14- 7PM: Playwriting Workshop with Featured Artist Elaine Romero

Aspiring writers are invited to join us for a free playwriting workshop led by Featured Artist Elaine Romero - no experience necessary, just an open mind and a sense of adventure! This is a free event but space is limited. Please email paula@idtheater.org to reserve your space.

Thursday, June 15: STROKE by Manuel Zarate

When you're a blank canvas, where do you start? When you are not who you were, then who are you now? After a paralyzing stroke, Jose, a famous painter, struggles to return to the canvas. Obsessed with keeping his condition a secret, he hires a string of artist models all of whom must follow his strict and uncompromising rules of non-engagement. That is until Elizabeth. It's not that she can't follow the rules, she just doesn't want to. Right or wrong, her stroke is anything but gentle. Over the course of a year, they slowly re-paint their lives.

Friday, June 16: FLEE by Steph Del Rosso

Delia is running. But running from what? Or toward what? Her soon-to-be-born child? Shadows of her past? Anxieties about her future? Holed up in a remote, lakeside inn, she seems to have finally found some solace. But things aren't always as they first appear, and there's something in the lake that won't stop talking.

Saturday, June 17: THE SECRETARY by Kyle John Schmidt

The Bridesmaid, The Babysitter, The Mallwalker. Ruby's small-town gun company names each of its products after a gal who used a gun and saved a life--usually her own. But as production begins on the company's newest model, The Secretary, the guns start going off-and no one's pulling the trigger. Ruby knows there's nothing wrong with the Secretary. But if the gun isn't the problem... what is?

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHTS

Featured Playwright - Elaine Romero has had her plays presented at the Alley Theatre,

Arizona Theatre Company, Actors Theatre of Louisville, the Kennedy Center, across the U.S. and abroad. Recent commissions include Modern Slave (Ford's Theatre), Title
IX (Arizona Theatre Company), and A Work of Art (Goodman Theatre). Publishers: Samuel French, Playscripts, and Vintage Books. Graveyard of Empires (Blue Ink Playwriting Award) premiered at 16th Street Theater alongside A Work of Art which premiered at Chicago Dramatists in conjunction with the Goodman Theatre. The
upcoming Rain of Ruin will complete her war trilogy. Her Arizona/Mexican border trilogy includes Wetback, Mother of Exiles, and Title IX. Modern Slave was given staged readings at Victory Gardens Theater and at the Road Theatre in LA in 2016. Title IX, which looks at the insidious nature of sexual inequality, will be featured at the 2017 O'Neill National Playwrights Conference. Romero is a Resident Playwright at Chicago Dramatists. She holds her MFA from UC Davis. She is an Assistant Professor in School of Theatre, Film & Television at the University of Arizona.

Dwayne Blackaller is the writer of the plays The Acheri, The Science of Fiction, Air
Heart, and r e / f r a c t i o n. Since his first collaboration as a play devisor with Boise Contemporary Theater in The Physics of Regret, he has had a passion for co-creation. His work as a co-writer with Matthew Cameron Clark includes A Nighttime Survival Guide, The Uncanny Valley and Narwhal! Unicorn of the Sea, and the upcoming
plays Rabbit/Moon and Winnemucca. He's co-written two plays with Tracy
Sunderland: Maggie Lumiere and the Ghost Train and S.A.D. (Spooky Action at a Distance). Dwayne has worked as a puppeteer, sword-fighter and stilt-walker in Las Vegas, trained with Anne Bogart's Siti Company in New York and specializes in teaching Viewpoints and Suzuki for actors. He earned his MFA in acting at the Ohio State University with a focus on movement and devising new work and is now the Education Director and Associate Artist at BCT. He'd like to thank Seven Devils for the opportunity to share great stories with amazing people and to sniff the lilacs in June.

Matthew Cameron Clark is the Founding Artistic Director of Boise Contemporary Theater and a seventh generation Idahoan. He has co-written three plays with Dwayne
Blackaller: A Nighttime Survival Guide, The Uncanny Valley, and Narwhal! Unicorn of the Sea, all of which premiered at BCT. He has worked as an actor or director on more than fifty professional productions since his career began in 1995, including World Premieres by Dwayne Blackaller, Eric Coble, Maria Dahvana Headley, Michael Rohd, Samuel D. Hunter, Lynn Allison, Brian Quirk, and Jeni Mahoney. Matthew is a recipient of the Boise Mayor's Award for Excellence in the Arts and an Idaho Commission on the Arts Fellowship. The Seven Devils Playwrights Conference is one of his favorite things in the whole wide world.

Isabella D'Esposito is a New York based playwright, composer and lyricist. As a playwright, her works have been produced and read by Carnegie Mellon University, Red Theater Purchase, The FIVE Collective, ARTS Tristate and the Horizon Theater. She was a semi-finalist for the Downstage Left residency with her play People for the Ethical Treatment of the Undead, and was selected for an apprenticeship with New York Stage and Film's Powerhouse Theater, a residency at SUNY Stonybrook's International Theater Festival, and was accepted into the New South Young Playwright's Festival at the Horizon Theater. She recently completed her MFA at Carnegie Mellon University, where she was the recipient of the Jean and Samuel Elgart Legacy Fellowship.

Steph Del Rosso is a playwright and educator currently pursuing her MFA at UC-San Diego, where she studies with Naomi Iizuka. Her work has been developed or presented with Soho Rep, Clubbed Thumb, New York Stage and Film, Colt Coeur, Judson Memorial Church, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Caldera Arts, the Disquiet International Literary Program in Lisbon, Portugal, and others. She is an alum of the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab and Clubbed Thumb's Early Career Writers' Group, a two-time semi-finalist for both the National Playwrights' Conference and Clubbed Thumb's Biennial Commission, and a New Georges Affiliated Artist. Her play ARE YOU THERE? will premiere at UCSD's Wagner New Play Festival and MACHINALIA, her adaptation of Sophie Treadwell's MACHINAL, will be produced by the Ubuntu Theater Project in Oakland, CA (May/June 2017).

Patrick Gabridge writes plays, novels, screenplays, and radio plays. His stage plays include Lab Rats, Distant Neighbors, Blood on the Snow, and Reading the Mind of God, and dozens of short plays which have been staged in theatres around the world. His novels are Steering to Freedom, Moving (a life in boxes) and Tornado Siren. He co- founded Boston's Rhombus playwright's group, the publication Market InSight... for Playwrights, and the on-line Playwrights' Submission Binge. His plays are published by Playscripts, Brooklyn Publishers, Heuer, Smith & Kraus, Original Works Publishers, and YouthPlays. He's been a fellow with New Rep and with the Huntington Theatre Company in Boston and is the co-founder and coordinator of the New England New Play Alliance. In his spare time, he likes to farm and fix up old houses. Drift was inspired by the two years he spent running a small organic farm in Massachusetts.

Kyle John Schmidt is a writer from Montezuma, Iowa. His plays have been produced by Actors Theatre of Louisville (Take 10 Apprentice Showcase and the Humana Festival), Crashbox Theatre, the Kid Magicians, Play-in-a-Bar, the Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway

Short Play Festival, University of Texas New Theatre, and the David Mark Cohen New Works Festival. His full length plays have received readings at Capital Stage, Stage West, and Nashville Repertory Theatre, and have been finalists for the Humana Festival, PlayPenn, the Lark's Playwrights' Week, and the Princess Grace Award. Furthermore, Kyle was co-winner of the 2010 Heideman Award and is a former member of the Ingram New Play Lab. He received his MFA from the Michener Center for Writers.

Dayna Smith is a graduate of Boise State University, holding a BA in Theatre Arts, Dramatic Writing, and currently works as an Artistic and Membership Intern for The Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Dayna recently worked with The Kennedy Center as a selected finalist for their inaugural Undergraduate Playwrights Conference and the Seven Devils Playwrights Conference as an intern. Her work has seen at Boise State University Theatre Majors' Association; HomeGrown Theater; and Boise Contemporary Theater. Additionally, she is the Artistic Director of Boise's Campfire Theatre Festival, which will take place in September 2017.

Manuel Zarate is a playwright, director, photographer, poet, and entrepreneur who has bridged the gap between the arts and the business world. He founded the non-profit HBMG Foundation which integrates theater, technology and business, and currently serves as Artistic Director for the Foundation's National Winter Playwrights Retreat in Colorado. With over 20 years experience in theater, Manuel has served as Artist-in- Education for the State of Oregon and Director of Arts for the Washington Institute for Leadership. He has served as a National Juror for the American Multicultural Festival and as Artistic Director for several theaters. He's honored to be a member of Actors Equity, Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, and Dramatists Guild.

To post a comment, you must register and login.

 

---

Join Team BroadwayWorld

Are you an avid theatergoer? We're looking for people like you to share your thoughts and insights with our readers. Team BroadwayWorld members get access to shows to review, conduct interviews with artists, and the opportunity to meet and network with fellow theatre lovers and arts workers.

Interested? Learn more here.

---