In addition to acting, I’ve directed a good number of plays, taught acting to young people on numerous occasions, and produced a dozen stage projects.
Another role I in which I take great pride is that of ‘Founding Producing Artistic Director.’
From 2007 through 2018, I operated the Icicle Creek Theatre Festival, later renamed the Icicle Creek New Play Festival, in Leavenworth, Washington. The Festival was a unique Northwest institution which for eleven seasons offered playwrights from across the country (as well as from Canada and London) the space, time, and support they needed to develop their new plays.
Playwrights came to Icicle Creek Center to collaborate with a skilled team of Equity actors, SDC directors, and dramaturgs in a week of intensive workshopping which permitted the authors to make major improvements to their plays. The Festival would present the plays in its Leavenworth venue, then bring them to ACT Contemporary Theatre in Seattle for additional showings.
The Festival had an extraordinary track record. 75% of the plays we developed were then produced in regional theatres, in London, or Off-Broadway. Many won top awards: the Drama Desk, the Lucille Lortel, the Obie. Four Festival plays went on to win the Steinberg Award — the top award for plays produced outside of New York City. It brought us national recognition.
We workshopped Bloomsday by Steven Dietz and it went directly to ACT Contemporary Theatre’s mainstage; it then won a Steinberg Award. Bloomsday marked FIVE Steinberg nominations for Icicle Creek plays — and our fourth award. Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World by Yussef El Guindi won a Steinberg Award, and a Gregory Award for Best Play, then received a highly successful production at ACT. Seven Spots on the Sun by Martin Zimmerman won a Steinberg Award; Mia Chung’s play You For Me For You was nominated for the Steinberg.
The most notable work to come out of the Festival was THE WHALE by Samuel D. Hunter. It won the Steinberg Award as well as the Drama Desk, three Lucille Lortel Awards, and an Obie. It was produced regionally and Off-Broadway, and then became an Oscar-winning film directed by Darren Aronofsky, starring Brendan Fraser.
