National Theatre Conference to Feature Works by Converse Playwrights

Original one-act plays written by Amanda Cartwright ’04, Rebekah Reed ’05, and Steve Hunt, Professor of Theatre, will be presented at the prestigious Edward Albee Last Frontier Theatre Conference in Valdez, Alaska in June.

Amanda’s play is entitled “Resolution,” and is described as a dark comedy. “I wrote ‘Resolution’ in one night,” says Amanda, an English major and Cowpens, S.C. native. “It’s a bit different than most plays in that the story unfolds backwards chronologically.”

In “Grace,” Dallas, Texas native Rebekah has scripted a drama focusing on a couple who have lost their child in a car accident. “In ‘Grace,'” she says, “the parents are standing by the grave of their child, trying to cope with their loss.” Rebekah is a Bio-Chemistry major with a minor in Theatre.

Both “Grace” and “Resolution” were written during the Winter Term ’03 Playwriting course.

Professor Hunt’s “Cinderella Stonesmith,” also a one-act piece, has a comedic tone while focusing on a relationship between a woman and her grandson. “In the story,” Hunt explains, “the boy’s mother has died and his father is missing. So it’s up to the grandmother to take care of the boy. The act is centered around a story she is telling the boy about his father as she tries to establish a relationship with him.”

Co-founded in 1993 by Pulitzer-Prize winning author Edward Albee and dramatist Marshall Mason, the conference began as a venue for honoring important established playwrights and authors. Very quickly it expanded to include the development of new writers and the presentation of new plays.