The Annual Last Frontier Theatre Conference is coming up on June 12-18. Now in its twenty-fourth year, the event draws hundreds of participants yearly. While a majority come from within the state, there are also many participants from the lower 48 and beyond. The farthest travelers this year include a playwright from Greece and production from Australia.
The week features six evenings of live theatre, and this year they will all be presented with no admission charge . “What we want is full theatres. We want to share the amazing live performances we have lined up with as many people as possible, so we’ve eliminated any financial impediment to attending for people in Valdez.” The shows start at 8:00 p.m., and will run Sunday through Friday. They include a performance being brought in from Austrailia, an internationally acclaimed one-woman show about dancing in Fairbanks, and four other great shows. For a full descriptions of the shows, visit http://theatreconference.org/current-conference/info-for-participants/evening-performances/.
The lifeblood of the Conference is the developmental Play Lab. This year it will feature readings of 53 new plays by a cast of 156 actors, ranging from Los Angeles professionals to Alaskan high school students. Plays receive a single rehearsal before being publicly read and responded to by theatre professionals. A full list of presenters is available at http://theatreconference.org/play-lab/. Respondents include many award-winning authors, including Kia Corthron, Arthur M. Jolly, Beth Lincks, Cassandra Medley, and Australia’s most internationally acclaimed author, Timothy Daly.
Howard Stein Acting Studio instructor Laura Gardner and her husband Frank Collison (familiar to fans of Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman, My Name Is Earl, and many other Hollywood films and television shows) return for their tenth year, coordinating the popular Monologue Workshop. In this program, attending authors provide monologues which are then worked on by attending actors, culminating in a presentation on the final Saturday. A collection of work from this program was issued by Focus Publishing in 2013.
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Every year since 2007, the Conference has honored someone with the Jerry Harper Service Award. This year’s award will be presented to former Prince William Sound Community College president Doug Desorcie, who was integral to the Conference from its first year. For more about him and past participants, visit http://theatreconference.org/other-programs/the-jerry-harper-service-award/.
For any questions about the Last Frontier Theatre Conference, call 834-1614 or e-mail dmoore@pwsc.alaska.edu, or visit www.theatreconference.org. During the event itself, call 835-2469.
