The Seven Devils Playwrights Conference will launch its 2007 series of events with a reading of a new, un-produced play by guest playwright Richard Dresser.
The reading from "A View of the Harbor" will be held Wednesday, June 13, at 7:30 p.m. at the Alpine Playhouse on Roosevelt Street in McCall. Admission is free.
"A View of the Harbor" is the third in Dresser's trilogy about happiness in America. "This is a play that is still in development," conference artistic director Jeni Mahoney said. "In fact, this is a new draft - so he'll be hearing it for the first time at the conference, which is incredibly exciting."
"Each of the plays in the trilogy examines the American concept of the pursuit of happiness and social mobility from a different class perspective," Dresser said. "In each play, there is a concerted attempt to escape the social class into which one was born."
In "A View of the Harbor," a young idealist, on the run from a heritage of wealth and privilege, attempts to find happiness as a factory worker. The first play in the trilogy, "Augusta" (the working class play) was presented last summer at the Contemporary American Theater festival in West Virginia. The second play, "The Pursuit of Happiness" (the middle-class play) premiered in January at the Laguna Playhouse in California.
Richard Dresser's plays, including "Rounding Third," "Below the Belt," "Gun-Shy," "Better Days," "The Downside," "Wonderful World," "Splittsville" and "The Road to Ruin" have been widely produced in the US. and in Europe.
"What Are You Afraid Of?" which was staged in the front seat of a car at the Actors Theatre of Louisville's Humana Festival, ran in Germany for four years. He also wrote the book for the Broadway musical "Good Vibrations" and the screenplay for the movie "Human Error," which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. He twice attended the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference and is a former member of New Dramatists.
Television audiences will recognize Dresser's work from the HBO series "The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd" and "Vietnam Stories." Dresser also worked on "The Job" with Denis Leary on ABC and "The Education of Max Bickford" on CBS with Richard Dreyfuss.
Dresser also will host a free playwriting workshop on Saturday, June 16, at 11 a.m. entitled, "What's Stopping You? Get Out of Your Own Way and Start Writing."
The session is designed for writers, writers-to-be and curious creative souls to learn tools to overcome roadblocks and get themselves on the road to creativity. No experience is necessary.
Reservations for the workshop can be made by e-mailing jeni@ sevendevils.org, by calling (208) 634-1181 after Tuesday or signing up in the lobby of McCall's Alpine Playhouse starting June 11. This year the conference will also include readings of 10 other new plays. Four were selected from submissions from around the country, four were written by students from the McCall-Donnelly High School Playwriting Class, and two were written by writers invited into the new Playwrights Intensive Program.
"We're thrilled two native Idahoans are in the line-up this year," says id co-artistic director Sheila McDevitt. "We had a lot of submissions, so it's a real testament to the talent of Pacific Northwest writers."
Seven Devils Playwrights Conference is a project of id Theatre Company, and sponsored by the Alpine Playhouse. For more information about this year's events, visit www.sevendevils.org.
