@dramatistsguild @nancygall

Hooray, Kentucky has its first Dramatists Guild Youth Ambassador! Elizabeth “Ellie” Kilcoyne is a theatre major at University of Kentucky (UK) in Lexington. Thanks to Advanced Placement courses in high school, intense semesters at UK, and lots of hard work, Ellie is slated to graduate at the tender age of twenty.

Our Ambassador was elected to take part in two prestigious literary groups in Kentucky – the Governor’s School for the Arts and The Twenty: A Young Writer’s Advance. Her Las Voces de Los Apalches was presented in partnership with UK’s Appalachian Center in April. This summer she did dramaturgy work for UK’s fall production of Dancing at Lughnasa.

Ellie is excited about serving as Kentucky’s first Youth Ambassador and says the “wealth of artists in the region is what makes Kentucky great.” Welcome, Ellie!

Two Kentucky artists – both of whom are members of the Dramatists Guild – are working hard to ensure that playwrights in the state have opportunities for development, readings, productions, and recognition. The organizations they have formed may serve as models for others.

Dedicated to the development of locally grown plays, Derby City Playwrights (DCP) is the brainchild of Brian David Walker. In the Louisville area, Walker is best known as the creator and artistic producer of Finnigan’s Festival of Funky Fresh Fun, a showcase of offbeat short plays by local writers now in its eighth year. His work has also been seen in numerous other venues, and he was a member of Tennessee Repertory Theatre’s 2012-2013 Ingram New Play Lab.

Walker modeled Derby City Playwrights on 13P (http://www.13p.org/) in New York City and The Welders in Washington, D.C. (http://www.thewelders.org). His first step was to invite playwrights to submit an unproduced ten-minute play, an unproduced full-length play or a proposal for a full-length play, a resume or bio, and an artistic statement explaining what the applicant could contribute to DCP beyond his or her playwriting skills. From these applications, Walker chose eleven writers aged 25 to 68 to join him for Year One.

At DCP’s first meeting in July, Walker and the eleven committed to attending monthly meetings to hear and discuss pages of one another’s full-length plays-in-progress. Completed plays will have staged readings and talkbacks at The Bard’s Town Theatre in Louisville. Walker hopes to fill the seats at these readings with potential producers as well as the general public. The four-year-old Bard’s Town Theatre is the perfect venue for the readings. Co-owner of the theatre, Guild member Doug Schutte, wants his theatre to focus on today’s bards.

The second organization of interest is Kentucky Playwrights Workshop, Inc. (KPW). William H. McCann, Jr. of Corinth, Kentucky, is president of the group and was a founding member in 2008 when it was known as 517 Playwrights (an address reference). Initially, meetings – held in various locations in Kentucky – focused on readings of shorts-in-progress. However, the organization soon broadened its scope.

KPW has held two conferences for playwrights. The first in 2013 was at Shaker Village where Arlene Hutton, author of As It Is in Heaven and The Nibroc Trilogy, was the keynote speaker. This year’s conference at Georgetown College featured editor and critic Lawrence Harbison.

For the last three years, KPW has sponsored a competition leading to the production of six short plays by Kentuckians in a most unlikely setting – the Kentucky State Fair. Playwrights receive a modest royalty, and KPW is also marketing the plays as a package to other theatres. KPW is currently examining the needs of playwrights and theatres in our sprawling state and will continue to evolve to respond to those needs.

For more details about either group, check Facebook pages for Brian Walker or Bill McCann. Also, please join our Facebook page, Dramatists Guild – Kentucky Region.

ngallclayton@dramatistsguild.com

Photo: (above) Derby City Playwrights. Photographer: Becky LeCron

Photo: (above) Brian David Walker. Photographer: Becky LeCron