Desert Playwrights' Retreat Expands & Adds Team Members

The Desert Playwrights' Retreat, an LGBTQIA playwriting retreat hosted in Palm Springs and Cathedral City, CA, has expanded the number of playwrights it will host each year, and has added two new coordinators to their team.

Established in 2018 by playwright and dramaturg Sean Abley, the Desert Playwrights' Retreat is a 5-day, all-expenses-paid writing retreat for LGBTQIA playwrights. "The purpose of the Retreat is to provide safe creative space, encourage artistic output, and facilitate fellowship between queer artists," offers Abley. Although largely DIY, each Retreat generally entails quiet writing time during the day, and sharing work in the evenings.

"The reason I founded the Retreat is simple - LGBTQIA history is literally being erased," explains Abley. "Our stories are being banned in schools. Performance events from drag shows to full theatrical productions are being shut down or protested," he observes. "In the last few months alone, Paula Vogel's Indecent, The Laramie Project, and even The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee have either been banned or canceled by high schools due to LGBTQIA content. And in the meantime, conservative voices have filled the void with disgusting, anti-LGBTQIA narratives that not only demean us, but endanger us as well."

"One way to fight this ridiculous wave of 'Don't Say Gay' censorship and demonization is to create even more LGBTQIA content," Abley offers as a solution. "Flood the world with our stories, our history, our art. Keep their harmful narratives at bay, and make it impossible to silence our own. And I think the Desert Playwrights' Retreat is the perfect place to do just that."

The all-expenses-paid Retreat provides travel, lodging, and meals for the members of each "cohort" invited to spend time in the desert. "I realized very early on that removing the barrier of money for participation in the Retreat was crucial," Abley says. "Sadly income inequity in the arts is still a problem, and while I can't remove every financial concern for the playwrights who want to join us, we're going to do everything we can on our end to make it as easy as possible." Each cohort of 4-7 playwrights costs $6,000, all in. "Of course, we're always fundraising, both via grants and tax-deductible personal donations. The work is ongoing, but I think it would be wonderful if some of the more successful playwrights of our time would throw the rope back and fund an entire cohort."

Originally created to host small numbers of playwrights, Desert Playwrights' Retreat has recently expanded, and will host up to 24 playwrights in 2023 alone.

Along with the expansion in scope, in January 2023 Desert Playwrights Retreat added two new artists, Natalie Nicole Dressel and Fran Astorga, to the organization.

Natalie Nicole Dressel (she/her), a trans playwright and performer, joined Desert Playwrights' Retreat as the permanent house dramaturg for trans cohorts, and moving forward will also be involved in the general planning and executing of Retreats.

Dressel attained her MFA in writing for the Stage and Screen from Point Park University in Pittsburgh, PA, her BFA in Theater from Michigan State University, and is a graduate of the UCB LA improv program. Her play There is Evil in This House (in which she also performs) was a Second Rounder at AFF and a 2019 O'Neill NPC finalist. She supplied various voices for the English language dub of Veneno, and the lead on Todo Lo Otro (or Dafne and the Rest). Her play Now and Never was adapted into a short film which won "Best Dark Fantasy Film" at Austin After Dark, and appeared in festivals like Chelsea, Chicago South Asian Film Festival, 4th Dimension Film Fest, DCSAFF, The Valley Film Festival and others. Natalie was recently awarded a production grant by the City of West Hollywood for a showing of her work.

Fran Astorga (they/them) is a playwright, performer and co-founder of In The Margin, a theater company created to facilitate underserved voices and communities through performance, production, and advocacy. Astorga initially joined DPR as a financial coordinator, and will add general Retreat planning and execution to his responsibilities.

Astorga is a playwright residing on Yelamu, Ramaytush Ohlone land (San Francisco, CA) whose artistic works center the well-being of the community and artistic excellence by working to decolonize approaches, practices, and procedures that negatively impact folx from marginalized communities. Fran's monologue La Bendición was commissioned for the Walls and Bridges Monologue Festival (2020) and was later featured in "An Evening of Native Works" with the Native Writers Lab at Potrero Stage (2022). Fran wrote the pilot episode OnlyFans Promo for InstaNovelas, a commissioned play series presented on Instagram Live (2021). Fran's full-length play, Exhaustion Arroyo: Dancin' Trees in the Ravine, was commissioned and produced as a reading by IN THE MARGIN, the National New Play Network, and B Street Theater for the inaugural New American Theatre Festival (2021). Exhaustion Arroyo was later featured as a reading at the Latinx Theatre Common's 2022 Comedy Carnaval. Exhaustion Arroyo will receive its world premiere with Cutting Ball Theater and IN THE MARGIN in April 2023.

Desert Playwrights' Retreat founder Sean Abley is a screenwriter, journalist, dramaturg, novelist, and award-winning playwright. He has over thirty plays published by Playscripts, Brooklyn Publishers, Heuer Publishing, Next Stage Press, Stage Partners, Plays to Order, and Eldridge Plays and Musicals, and his plays have been developed and performed at the Kennedy Center, Antaeus Theater Company's Playwrights Lab, Goodman Theatre, Celebration Theatre, Provincetown Theater, Fuse Theatre Ensemble, St. Louis Actors' Studio, Write/Act Repertory, Factory Theater, Merry-Go-Round Youth Theatre, SkyPilot Theatre Company, Virginia City Players, and academically at the Playwrights Lab at Hollins University and California State University-Stanislaus. His plays for young audiences have been performed in over 300 professional and educational productions in the U.S.A. and eleven countries around the world.

Before moving to Los Angeles, Sean was the co-founder and co-Artistic Director (1992-1997) of Chicago's prolific Factory Theater, and in 2016 created the micro-publishing company, Plays to Order, to publish playwrights' collected works. He has an MFA in Playwriting from The Playwrights Lab at Hollins University, and is a member of the Antaeus Theater Company's Playwrights Lab, the Writers Guild of America, Playwrights Union (emeritus, Los Angeles), and the Dramatists Guild.

Desert Playwrights' Retreat is currently gearing up for simultaneous gay and lesbian cohorts, after their most recent trans cohort in October 2022. Applications for the Desert Playwrights' Retreat are cyclical. LGBTQIA playwrights interested in applying to join a cohort should visit the Desert Playwrights' Retreat website, www.desertplaywrightsretreat.com

Desert Playwrights' Retreat is funded via grants and personal, tax-deductible donations. Those interested in donating to provide and protect LGBTQIA creative space will find the company's donation portal on their website, www.desertplaywrightsretreat.com/fundraising