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), Rob 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, Timothy 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 Theater, 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.

We had our first production meeting, and it was such a thrill to see Set Designer and Technical Director Peter Dylan O’Connor’s simple yet elegant concept. Everyone was inspired by how it would help the theme of each play resonate. Directors shared their thoughts and the juices flowed. Before we know it, rehearsals will spring into action and a complete creative ensemble will be bringing these exciting new works to life.

We couldn’t have asked for a better evening! Thank you so much to everyone who came out to the Erickson last night to launch the official countdown to SOAP Fest. Saint John’s Bar and Eatery prepared a delicious spread, Choroloco set just the right mood, folks mingled, the playwrights read, Waxie dazzled, money was raised, and we feel incredibly lucky.

We are proud to announce the directors for the 2013 Sandbox One-Act Play Festival:

Annie Lareau directing Paul Mullin’s Openly We Carry
Andrew McGinn directing Emily Conbere’s Knocking Bird
Julie Beckman directing Scot Augustson’s Milwaukee
Carol Roscoe directing Elizabeth Heffron’s …dispose of me…

And if you’re in the Capitol Hill neighborhood tomorrow evening, please stop by the Erickson Theatre between 7-9pm to toast the playwrights, directors and production team, as we launch our official countdown to SOAP Fest!

Hello! And thank you for visiting the SOAP Fest blog, where you can find out everything about Seattle’s very own grassroots professional theatre festival, premiering new works by local playwrights, under the Actors’ Equity Association Members’ Project Code.

The Sandbox Artists Collective is a group of Seattle’s mid-career theatre professionals that was formed so we could work together on projects that inspired and challenged us. This June 13-15 at the Erickson Theatre, we’re launching a festival of new one-act plays written, directed and performed by Sandboxers. It’ll be a fully produced evening on a bare bones budget. We are thrilled to announce the lineup:

Milwaukee, by Scot Augustson – Humor and pathos collide as an aging mother struggles to communicate with her two grown sons.

…dispose of me…, by Elizabeth Heffron – A young woman and a former step-father figure are reunited after the death of her mother and try to redefine their relationship in the midst of a life-changing event.

Openly We Carry, by Paul Mullin – An allegorical tale about an openly carrying gun community and the rise of a comely female prophet.

Knocking Bird, by Emily Conbere – Surreal transformations occur when a professional couple leaves the city to cut ties with the outside world.

Over the next several months, we’ll bring you updates regarding directors, casting, the ins and outs of the production process, and ways in which you can be a part of developing new plays from the ground up.

Thanks a million for checking in on us. We can’t wait to see you at the show!

Sincerely,

Amy Love, Gin Hammond & Liza Comtois
SOAP Fest