Congratulations to Lawrence DuKore!

Lawrence DuKore's 20 minute one-act play, Stained Glass, ran in repertory at the off-Broadway Metropolitan Playhouse during June 2011. STAINED GLASS is the story of a disabled African American combat veteran and his lady friend, a white artist who works in stained glass. They live on the Lower East Side and have divergent attitudes about dealing with a destructive black teenager who continuously throws rocks at the artist’s stained glass windows. The problem solver turns out to be an unlikely third party with a practical, realistic solution to the problem: inclusion rather than exclusion.

Mr. DuKore's play The Day that Brando Died was produced by Kentucky Playwrights Workshop, Inc. as part of it's 2009 Midway Festival of New Plays.

More History

When it became evident that we were actually going to have to judge the submissions Bill McCann contacted Actors Theatre of Louisville for help. One of the heroes of our tale, Amy Wegener ATL's Literary Manager came to the rescue. Riding out of Louisville into the outer reaches of Central Kentucky Ms. Wegener came to the group's June 7, 2009 meeting.

By this time members of 517 Playwrights had reduced the 100 submissions by about half. Contest Coordinator Bill McCann had forwarded about 20 or so submissions to each of the other judges and judged the remainder himself. At the early June meeting Ms. Wegener gave the group ideas about how to select not only good plays but plays that would work well together to create an evening's entertainment that would be both varied, but unified.

Two weeks later the judges met again and selected the contest winners:

Crish Barth, Orinda, CA, Hill Cattle

Len Cuthbert, Mt. Brydges, Ontario, CANADA, Enigmatic Lucidity

Lawrence DuKore, New York, NY, The Day that Brando Died

Leon Kaye, Hyde Park, NY, More Pasta

Thomas Pierce, Seattle, WA, Almost Connect....

Kay Rhoads, Ankeny, IA, Last Church of Lost Souls

Steven Schutzman, Baltimore, MD, The Weight

With the selection of winners, the hard work began. Jim Betts was selected to produce the plays: he found directors and actors, a venue oversaw the finding of props and scenery, and otherwise made the event happen. Meanwhile Bill McCann made certain that we had contracts with the playwrights and kept the playwrights up to date about what was going on with the contest.

Jim though had the biggest task-- getting the plays on stage. He found a venue in Midway, Kentucky The Thoroughbred Theatre located in the heart of that vibrant but small community midway between Lexington and Frankfort. Working with the theatre's owners Jim and John McDaniel and their staff a date for the production was settled on: October 9th throu the 11th. Time it seemed started to move faster.

Jim secured the help of Bob Singleton to co-roduce the event. Between them Jim and Bob found five other local thespians to help them cast and direct the shows.

Arts reporter at rehearsal

Rich Copley, arts reporter for the Lexington Herald-Leader was at this past Monday night's first technical rehearsal. Mr. Copley interviewed Jim Betts, producer of the Festival's plays and director of The Weight by Steven Schutzman, Bob Singleton director of Enigmatic Lucidity by Len Cuthbert, and others involved in bringing the event together.

After his interviews Mr. Copley stayed around and took pictures of two of the plays as they were being rehearsed on stage at the Thoroughbred Community Theatre in Midway: Hill Cattle written by Crish Barth and directed by Scott Turner and The Day That Brando Died written Lawrence DuKore and directed by Ross Carter.

Mr. Copley said that his article about the Midway "Festival of New Plays" featuring the winning plays of the 517 Playwrights 10-Minute Play Contest will run in the Friday October 9th "Weekender" section of the Lexington Herald-Leader. Mr. Copley's article will also be available on line at Kentucky.com

Directors Announced for Winning Plays

James Betts, producer of the winning plays from this year's 517 Playwrights' 10-Minute Play Contest, announced the directors for the plays that will be produced under the auspices of the Kentucky Playwrights' Workshop, Inc. October 9-11, 2009 at the Thoroughbred Community Theatre in Midway, KY.

The plays and their directors, listed alphabetically by playwright are:

Scott Turner, director of Crish Barth's Hill Cattle.
Bob Singleton director of Len Cuthbert's Enigmatic Lucidity.
Ross Carter director of Lawrence DuKore's The Day Brando Died.
Lief Rigney director of Leon Kaye's More Pasta.
Lillie Ruschelle director of Thomas Pierce's Almost Connect....
Lief Rigney director of Kay Rhoads', Last Church of Lost Souls.
Jim Betts director of Steven Schutzman's The Weight.

Lawrence DuKore: Legendary playwright?

Lawrence DuKore, author of The Day Brando Died, may well be legendary among playwrights because he has managed to make a living writing. His career began with the writing of the screen play for the Richard Pryor movie Greased Lightening. He followed this success with the teleplay A Mistaken Charity was produced PBS/American Playhouse and nominated for a Writers Guild of America award for best dramatic writing.

As a lyricist his songs have been recorded by Bernadette Peters and Chita Rivera.

Mr. DuKore has also written daytime tv serials: One Life to Live for ABC and Search for Tomorrow for NBC.

For Saturday morning television, he wrote the cartoon series, Thunder Cats and Silver Hawks. For somewhat older teenage girls, his novels, Never Love a Cowboy and Long Distance Love, were published by Bantam. The Boy Barrier and its French version, La Rivale were published by Scholastic.

Mr. Dukore is a member of the Actors Studio Playwrights/Directors Unit and the HB Playwrights Foundation (Uta Hagen/Herbert Berghof). His plays have been produced regionally and off-Broadway. Exploding the Swan had its world premiere at the Montauk Playhouse. His play, Spinsters, was presented at Tennessee Stage (Knoxville)and also at CenterStage in Greenville, South Carolina. More recently, Tennessee Stage presented his coal-mining play, Carry Me Back to West Virginia. Mr. DuKore has been a semi-finalist three years running in the American Globe Theatre Festival of One Act Plays. He was a finalist in the Heideman Awards competition at the Actors Theatre in Louisville for his one act play, When Men were Men. His one act play, The Day that Brando Died, was also a finalist in the Heideman Awards at the Actors Theatre in Louisville.

Mr. DuKore, the only one of our seven playwrights to have an agent is represented by the Susan Schulman Literary Agency: http://www.schulmanagency.com/

10-Minute Play Contest Winners!

The judges of this year's 517 Playwrights 10-Minute play contest have selected 7 winning plays by playwrights from Canada and the United States. More than 100 entries were received from as far away as Ireland, England and as close as Lexington and Louisville, Kentucky. The winners of this year's contest, listed alphabetically by playwright are:

Crish Barth, Orinda, CA, Hill Cattle
Len Cuthbert, Mt. Brydges, Ontario, CANADA, Enigmatic Lucidity
Lawrence DuKore, New York, NY, The Day that Brando Died
Leon Kaye, Hyde Park, NY, More Pasta
Thomas Pierce, Seattle, WA, Almost Connect....
Kay Rhoads, Ankeny, IA, Last Church of Lost Souls
Steven Schutzman, Baltimore, MD, The Weight

We are grateful for all who entered and who in doing so shared something of themselves with us. Those of us who judged the plays are also playwrights so we know how difficult it is to write, much less submit a play that others will accept or reject. Thanks go to all who put themselves out and took a chance by submitting to our contest. We appreciate the time and effort required to do so.

The seven winning plays will be produced at the Thoroughbred Community Theatre in Midway, KY October 9, 10 and 11th, 2009. The Friday and Saturday performances will be at night, the Sunday performance will be a matinee.