Keynote Speaker and Deadline Reminders

Gary Garrison

The KCACTF Region 5 Festival 49 KEYNOTE ADDRESS will be given by Gary Garrison, former Executive Director of the Dramatist Guild of America.  The Keynote address will be the finale of the Opening Ceremonies Event on the evening of Monday, January 23.

Gary Garrison, for the last decade, was the Executive Director of the Dramatist Guild of America – the national organization of playwrights, lyricists and composers headed by our nation’s most honored dramatists. Prior to his work at the Guild, Garrison filled the posts of Artistic Director, Producer and full‑time faculty member in the Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, where he produced over forty-five different festivals of new work, collaborating with hundreds of playwrights, directors and actors. Garrison’s plays include The Unexpected Light On Azadeh Medusa, Too Quick to Pick, Ties That Bind, Skirting the Issue, Caught Without Candy, Game On, The Sweep, Verticals and Horizontals, Storm on Storm, Crater, Old Soles, Padding The Wagon, Rug Store Cowboy, Cherry Reds, Gawk, Oh Messiah Me, We Make A Wall, The Big Fat Naked Truth, Scream With Laughter, Smoothness With Cool, Empty Rooms, Does Anybody Want A Miss Cow Bayou? and When A Diva Dreams. This work has been featured at the City Theatre of Miami, Boston Theatre Marathon, Primary Stages, The Directors Company, Manhattan Theatre Source, StageWorks, Open Door Theatre, Pulse Ensemble Theatre, Expanded Arts and New York Rep. His recent work as guest artist or master teacher of playwriting involve such institutions as Sewanee Writer’s Conference, The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, CityWrights, The Inkwell and Source Theatre in D.C., Baltimore Playwrights Festival, New Hampshire Playwrights Festival, Last Frontier Theatre Conference, Southeast Theatre Conference, Northwest Theatre Conference and Boston Playwrights. He is the author of the critically acclaimed, The Playwright’s Survival Guide: Keeping the Drama in Your Work and Out of Your Life, Perfect Ten: Writing and Producing the Ten‑Minute Play, A More Perfect Ten and two volumes of Monologues for Men by Men. He is on the Tony Administration Committee for the Tony Awards and the program director for the Summer Playwriting Intensive for the Kennedy Center. A collection of short plays, Verticals and Horizontals, was published last spring by Original Play Publishers in Los Angeles. In April of 2014, The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts instituted the National Gary Garrison Ten-Minute Play Award given to the best ten-minute play written by a university dramatist. In the spring of 2016, he was awarded the Milan Stitt Outstanding Teacher of Playwriting by the Kennedy Center.

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FESTIVAL DEADLINE REMINDERS:

IRENE RYAN PRE-REGISTRATION - Students must pre-register their scenes and partners by TOMORROW - Wednesday, January 11.  

EXPO REGISTRATION Deadline for all Design, Technology, Management, Dramaturgy projects is Wednesday, January 18.

COLLEGE FAIR - Schools interested in participating in the College Fair need to register by TOMORROW Wednesday, January 11.

PARKING - Parking rates are very expensive at the Downtown hotels including: Marriott, Hyatt, Residence Inn, Hampton Inn, Staybridge, and Embassy Suites. If you are staying at one of these hotels, you should plan to utilize the KCACTF off-site parking lot - only $25 per week for cars/vans and $60 per week for large busses. Go here to purchase your parking pass. All festival evens are within a 20 minute walk from the Downtown hotels.

WALKABLE FESTIVAL - We are so excited that our festival in Des Moines will be a walkable festival. There will be no shuttles, so pack warm clothes and wear comfortable walking shoes. Go here to learn all about Des Moines, explore the awesome indoor Skywalk System, and start planning your Festival 49!

Please let me know if you have any questions.All the best,
Brad