Andrea Aptecker Premieres THERE ARE MONSTERS at 7th Annual Durango PlayFest
Performances run June 24-29.
By: Stephi Wild Jun. 11, 2025
Playwright Andrea Aptecker will premiere her psychological thriller, There Are Monsters, at the 7th Annual Durango PlayFest, June 24-29. Now in its seventh season, PlayFest has fast become a coveted incubator for well-known and emerging playwrights, actors, and directors to develop new works and test them before audiences.
Aptecker's play blends suspense and magic realism into a haunting play about a wealthy husband and wife who welcome a pair of stranded strangers into their elegant but isolated home in the countryside. With a storm raging and no cell coverage, the evening takes a macabre turn when disturbing connections come to light.
The playwright's works have been performed in theatre festivals in the United States and UK. Aptecker was a semi-finalist in the Dramatists Guild Foundation National Fellowship Program, a finalist in the Gary Garrison Playwriting Award for 10-minute plays, and a semi-finalist in the Garry Marshall Theater New Works Festival. She received the Audience Favorite Prize in the Hear Me Out Monologue Competition.
Cast:
Tom Wright – Wright has appeared in more than 100 feature films and 80 television shows, including the popular Amazon Prime series, Daisy Jones and the Six. He's also been in more than 70 stage productions, both on and off Broadway.
Molly Carden – Carden returns to PlayFest for a fourth year. She most recently starred in the off-Broadway production of Amerikin (Primary Stages).
Julie Eccles – Eccles has been an associate artist at the California Shakespeare Theater for 15 years. She's been in productions with American Conservatory Theater, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Aurora Theater Company, Marin Theater Company, and many more.
Jacob Dresch – Dresch is a classically trained clown who revels in repertory. His credits include: The School for Scandal (Red Bull Theater, off-Broadway), and Lend Me A Tenor, The Foreigner, The Playboy of the Western World, The Hound of the Baskervilles and Macbeth (Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival).
Amy Glazer, an award-winning theatre and film director from the San Francisco Bay Area, will direct.
PlayFest will also feature readings of Becky and Her Lung Transplant by husband-and-wife writing duo Lucy Wright and William Missouri Downs, DQM or Drag Queen Magic by Ian August, and Drowning by Bill Capossere.
Since its co-founding by actors Wendie Malick and Dan Lauria, PlayFest has hosted esteemed playwrights such as Lee Blessing, Kathleen Cahill, and Richard Dresser, and emerging playwrights including James Anthony Tyler, Lia Romeo, and David Myers. Actors including Dylan Baker, Richard Kind, Jane Kaczmarek, Jodi Long, Tom Wright, Ray Abruzzo, Jon Tenney and Mike Farrell have numbered among The Acting Company, with eight plays springing to full production after their development at the Fest.
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