The Sandbox One Act Play Festival may be over six months away, but at SOAP Fest headquarters, we anticipate another successful run. We are thrilled to announce that SOAP Fest 2014 will be held at West of Lenin, Wednesday, June 4 – Sunday, June 8, allowing artists and audience members to have a more intimate theatre experience. The facility itself is brand new, and we thought it a most appropriate setting for a lineup of all new plays. Our sincerest thanks to AJ Epstein for making room on the busy production calendar for us.

West of Lenin is located in the heart of Fremont at 203 N 36th Street. Check out their current season here.

Photo by John Ulman/For more production photos click here.

After playing three sold out performances to Seattle’s most enthusiastic audiences, we look forward to returning in June 2014. Here’s to premiering brand new works that have yet to be written! Here’s to company! Here’s to SOAP Fest!

Nicole Merat and Shawn Belyea*/Photo by John Ulman

Tonight four new plays will come to life in front of an audience. We are grateful for the support of our SOAP Fest Friends, without whom none of this would be possible. What began in August 2012 has been an incredible journey of new ideas, taking risks, magnificent talent, and the Sandbox Artists Collective spirit. Congratulations to all.

*Member of Actors’ Equity Association

Susan Corzatte*, Tim Hyland*, and Paul Mullin

In these last few days, we work the tiny brush strokes. Tomorrow we’ll move to the theatre where lights, sound, and costumes will be added. The hours leading up to opening night are long, but the excitement is palpable. With actors such as these, the script is in masterful hands.

*Member of Actors’ Equity Association

We paid a visit to the Erickson scene shop today. Props and furniture were delivered, sharing space with other pieces from shows future and past. SOAP Fest is only 5 days away! We’re so close! And every member of our 34 person company is bringing it.

We’ve yet to introduce the secret weapon of SOAP Fest, better known as our kick ass creative team. Designers include Sandboxers Peter Dylan O’Connor (Technical Director and Set Design), Robertson Witmer (Sound Design), and Phillip Lienau (Properties), along with Reed Nakayama (Lighting Design), Kelly McDonald (Costume Design), Fawn Bartlett (Costume Design), Kat Stromberger (Scenic Painter), and Harry Jamieson (Assistant Sound Design). Jeremiah Givers mans the helm as Production Stage Manager, assisted by Kayla Walker, Jessica Jones, Jessilee Marander, and Sandboxer Norman Bell (doubling as Assistant Director on Openly). To sit in on a production meeting with Sandbox directors Julie Beckman, Annie Lareau, Andy McGinn, Carol Roscoe and the phalanx of designers is to witness some serious creative heat. We couldn’t be more in awe.

Here’s to the development of new plays – thank you Sean Williams of Gigantic Planet for capturing the spirit of SOAP Fest!

Thanks to photographer Ann-Margaret Johnson and the best day Seattle has seen this spring, Emily, Elizabeth, Paul, and Scot dared to scale Gas Works’ largest pieces of machinery, explored a few unknown corners, and tested their balance on the waters of Lake Union. Not only were our playwrights game, now they’re talking album covers. For official press photos click here.

Photo by Ann-Margaret Johnson/Sassafras Photos

Four shows, eleven actors, and one electrifying evening – we couldn’t be more enthused!  Sound the drum roll please, as we are eager to announce the 2013 SOAP Fest acting company:

Shawn Belyea, Susan Corzatte, Gin Hammond, Heather Hawkins, Tim Hyland, Tracy Hyland, Nicole Merat, Declan Mullin, Paul Mullin, Michael Patten, and Seanjohn Walsh

Now that we have our plays, our directors, our designers, and at last our actors, it’s time to get busy in the rehearsal room.

Onward!

What could be more exciting than seeing quality live theatre that hasn’t been done anywhere else before? It’s the playwrights that make it possible, and if you haven’t met them already, it’s high time you did.

Scot Augustson has been living and writing in Seattle for over twenty years. His work includes Shadow Odyssey, Boy in the Beastly City, Intelligence, and The Chris Schussler Incident. He is a proud member of Sandbox and Printer’s Devil Theater and is one of the Seattle Rep Writer’s Group playwrights. He is the creator of Sgt Rigsby & His Amazing Silhouettes. He is currently at work on a musical adaptation of the text book A Physician’s Guide to the Diagnosis and Treatment of Tropical Skin Diseases.

Elizabeth Heffron’s play, Bo-Nita, was selected for Portland Center Stage’s JAW: A Playwrights Festival last July, and will receive its world premiere there in February 2014. Her newest full-length work, The Weatherman Project (co-written with Kit Bakke), was part of the Seattle Repertory Theatre’s inaugural New Play Festival this past February. Other full-length plays include New Patagonia, produced by Seattle Repertory Theatre, and Mitzi’s Abortion, which received ACT Theatre’s New Play Award and a world premiere production. Elizabeth has received grants from the Seattle Arts Commission, and a fellowship from Artists Trust/Washington State Arts Commission. She currently teaches at Cornish College of the Arts, ACT’s Young Playwrights Program, and at Freehold Theatre/Lab, where she spent 5 years working with the women of the Washington Correctional Center for Women on inmate-generated performance pieces. She is a member of the Seattle Rep’s Writers Group, the Dramatists Guild, and The Sandbox Artists Collective.

Paul Mullin’s plays include Louis Slotin Sonata, The Sequence, The Ten Thousand Things, and An American Book of the Dead – The Game Show. His latest, Ballard House Duet, world premiered in Seattle in 2012. He conceived, co-wrote and co-produced NewsWrights United’s series of Living Newspapers, and is a regularly contributor to Sandbox Radio Live! Born in Baltimore, Maryland, he now makes his home in Seattle with his wife and two sons. He is currently developing a play about human consciousness tentatively titled Philosophical Zombie Killers. Mullin was recognized by The Stranger with a Genius Award for achievement in theatre. He is a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre and The Sandbox Artists Collective.

Emily Conbere has been in residence with Ensemble Studio Theatre, Mabou Mines, and American Lyric Theater. She has an MFA in Playwriting from Columbia University. Emily was a finalist for the Bay Area Playwrights Festival and for the Creative Capital Grant, and a recipient of the Sloan grant, a MacDowell Colony fellowship and a Tofte Lake Artist Residency. Her one-act play Slapped Actress is published in the Best American Short Plays Anthology 2008-2009, and her play The Scholar is published by S. Fischer Verlag.  She is currently in Seattle Rep’s New Play Program and part of The Sandbox Artists Collective.