Established and emerging playwrights from around the nation will converge on Valdez, Alaska, June 18-26 for the 12th annual Last Frontier Theatre Conference, arguably the most important theatrical event in the 49th state—and rapidly making its mark as a significant contributor to the development of U.S. theatre.
When founded by the president of Valdez's community college, Dr. Jo Ann C. McDowell, in 1993, the conference was first known by the lengthy moniker the Edward Albee Prince William Sound Community College Theatre Conference. Renamed the Last Frontier Theatre Conference a few years ago, it continues to bear Albee's enthusiastic imprimatur and active involvement.
Albee's presence draws theatre's well-known and up-and-coming playwrights, directors, producers, and actors, who often return year after year. Valdez, a small fishing town of 4,000, is best known as the terminus of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline and the site of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. It is also known as Alaska's "little Switzerland" because of the spectacular mountains and hanging glaciers that surround its picturesque location, 125 air miles and 300 road miles southeast of Anchorage.
Albee this year will bestow the Last Frontier Playwright Award on Tony Kushner, who will attend the conference for the first time. While the award ceremony is an important part of the 10-day event, the Play Lab and the Short Play Lab—with public readings and critiques, including comments from the audience—have become the conference's biggest attractions.
Panelists for the Play Lab this year are Albee, Kushner, John Guare, Lloyd Richards, Lawrence Sacharow, and Romulus Linney. All except Kushner have taken part in previous Valdez conferences. Guare is returning in 2004 for his third time since being the honoree in 2001. "I love the energy of the playwrights from all over the world who come to Valdez to hear their plays read and discussed, and to belong to a community," he said in a recent email.
Linney, the 2003 honoree, said in a telephone interview from his home in New York City that he can't wait to return to Valdez. "It's a very generous place in the way people are treated," he said. "I see Edward's hand in things. The thing I felt [in 2003] was Edward's generosity and his real concern for playwrights."
More than 400 scripts from the United States, England, France, and Australia were submitted this year, conference coordinator Dawson Moore said. The eight chosen for public readings and critiques are:
"Dealt" by Joshua Ess of Springfield, Mo.; "Don't Kiss Me, I'm in Training" by Jane Levison of Brooklyn, N.Y.; "Night, Sleep, and the Dreams of Lovers" by David Brendon Hopes of Asheville, N.C.; "States of Emergency" by Michael Manley of New York, N.Y.; "Dad's Arrival" by Kate McLeod of New York, N.Y.; "The Streams of Affection" by Randall Nott of Walnut Creek, Calif.; "Out of Place" by David Robson of Wilmington, Del.; and "Incident in the Aegean" by Jan Buckaloo of Wainscott, N.Y.
Play Lab and Short Play Lab playwrights must be present in Valdez for the readings of their scripts, performed by a core of actors from Alaska and elsewhere with scripts in hand.
It's all about respecting the work, Linney said. "That's the point of the whole [conference]. I can't tell you what it means for a young playwright. You're not grading them. You're just there and you listen, and you let yourself respond. Everybody is candid and supportive."
The Short Play Lab is similar to the Play Lab, with different panelists: Constance Congdon, David Crespy, Danielle Dresden, Peter Ellenstein, Jakob Holder, Barclay Jones-Kopchak, Colby Kullman, and Elaine Romero. Nearly 100 playwrights—including 29 Alaskans—were invited to this year's Short Play Lab, with about 85 expected to attend, Moore said.
In addition to daily play lab sessions, there are lectures and master classes in playwriting, directing, and acting. Evening performances include mainstage presentations by Albee, Kushner, Guare, and Linney reading their own work; an evening of scenes from Kushner's plays; and Marian Seldes and Albee reading from his recent play "Occupant."
Seldes is returning to Valdez for the second time, having wowed Alaska's actors in 2000 during a master class in acting. She also performed an unforgettable scene that year from "The Play About the Baby" during a public performance. "I've always wanted to come back," she said in a telephone interview from New York a few days after finishing a three-month run in "The Royal Family" at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles.
Seldes will take part in panel discussions and will teach another master class this year. Her most vivid memory of the 2000 conference remains her scene from "The Play About the Baby."
"It was an amazing audience," she said. "It just took fire. It gave me such confidence about going ahead with it in New York."
Other celebrities expected this year include Patricia Neal, who has attended almost every conference since its founding, and Chris Noth and Courtney B. Vance, both returning for their second time. All will take part in lectures, panels, and workshops, and all are expected to perform on the main stage.
"If you love theatre, you love anything that fosters theatre," Seldes said. "That's why we're all there—Edward's a magnet, you know."