Tag: Wayne Rawley

So I know you are going to find this hard to believe, but I was recently getting into it with a fellow playwright about the failures of the New York-centric hub-and-spoke model of new play development.  His argument was the tired old saw: “If you want the best product, you have to get it from the where all the best gather to produce it.”  If I recall correctly, he gave as an example: “If you’re were looking for a new sensei for your martial arts dojo, you would to look to Okinawa.”  I really have no idea what that means.  I did, however, offer the counter that if I want the best cheese, beer, wine, meats, fish, fruit and vegetables, I don’t really need to look beyond the Pacific Northwest.  Then I posted a helpful link on his Facebook wall to my essay “Theatre Takes Place: Why Locally Grown Plays Matter.”

The link disappeared within an hour.  So much for the free exchange of ideas.  I suppose when it comes to thoughts on theatre, the proper direction of flow is one-way from New York City to everywhere else.  

But honestly, I don’t even need to argue when amazing Seattle institutions like Rain City Projects regularly put world class money where my big mouth is.  Case in point, their upcoming release of Volume 3 of their Manifesto Series, a regularly published anthology of great Northwest Plays.

Can I even express to you how honored I was to be included with the likes of Yussef El Guindi recent winner of The Harold and Mimi Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award, or my personal heroine Elizabeth Heffron, or Stranger Genius Award winner Chris Jeffries or the fiercely incomparable Bret Fetzer and Stephen McCandless, all hand-selected by the nationally renowned playwright and playwriting teacher Naomi Iizuka?

Nope. I don’t believe I can, but— dammit!— I can try.

This coming Sunday we will be celebrating Volume 3’s release with free readings from several of the collected plays.  I’ll be there.  Yussef and Elizabeth mentioned they might be, too. So why don’t you come on down so we can sign your copy, hot, fresh, and locally sourced, right off the presses!?

Here are all the crucial details from Rain City Projects:

Rain City Projects is releasing the third book in its Manifesto series – anthologies of plays by Northwest playwrights. We’re very excited this time to have an anthology of seven plays selected by Naomi Iizuka who started by writing a manifesto of what theater should be and then chose plays she felt exemplified her vision. Please join us for a reading of short excerpts from Ms. Iizuka’s delightful manifesto and from the plays she chose including:

Language Rooms by Yussef El Guindi

Clubfoot by Bret Fetzer & Stephen McCandless

Mitzi’s Abortion by Elizabeth Heffron

Vera Wilde by Chris Jeffries

An American Book of the Dead by Paul Mullin

Live! From the Last Night of My Life by Wayne Rawley

and Wizzer Pizzer by Amy Wheeler

Sunday, April 15th at 2:00pm

The reading is FREE and will be held at Elliott Bay Book Company 1521 10th Ave, Seattle, WA 98122

Manifesto v. 3 will be available for purchase along with Manifesto v. 2 (edited by Steven Dietz) and Manifesto v. 1 (edited by Erik Ehn).