“Word Travels Fast!” We invite you to attend three outstanding theater events at this year’s Festival. All are open to the public free of charge.
Mark Medoff
Mark Medoff Friday Sept 29: 2:00-3:00pm, Seed Boat Gallery
Legendary playwright and screenwriter Mark Medoff talks about how his career and how his words have traveled throughout the world.
Mark Medoff received the Tony and Olivier Awards for CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD and was nominated for an Academy Award and a Writers Guild of America Best Adapted Screenplay Award for the film script of CHILDREN. He received an OBIE Award for WHEN YOU COMIN BACK, RED RYDER? Mark is a Distinguished Achievement Professor at New Mexico State University where he has been on faculty and an artist in residence since 1966.
His most recent play, MARILEE AND BABY LAMB: THE ASSASSINATION OF AN AMERICAN GODDESS, is scheduled to open on Broadway in the 2017-18 season.
“Blatant Attempts at Understanding” by Melanie Zipin Performed by the Virus Theater of Silver City
Friday, Sept 29, 3:30-4:30pm and Saturday, Sept 30, 1:30-2:30pm, El Sol Theater
Word travels fast in a series of scenes, monologues, and dramatic sketches that take the audience on an introspective journey, combining a sense of place (the high deserts of NM) with a quest for purpose.
Finding beauty, even solace, in the everyday, Melanie Zipin composes her songs and stories from the material that surrounds her. Born in Brooklyn and raised in Philadelphia, Melanie Zipin is a mixed media artist, performer and singer songwriter with three CD’s of original music to her credit.
Virus Theater has been producing live, original theater in Silver City, NM for 20 years. The mission of Virus Theater is to create relevant original live theater that is accessible to our diverse community, and to provide educational opportunities for adults and children in the performing arts. Virus Theater’s vision is to bring people together through theater to better understand our shared humanity and to inspire individual and collective growth.
“I, Custer” written by Neal Adelman Performed by Marissa Bond
Friday, Sept 29, 7:30pm and Saturday, Sept 30, 7:30pm, WNMU Parotti Hall
Chosen for the 2016 Mark Medoff Directorial Project Award, a one-woman play that deconstructs Custer, his life, and his last stand.
Neal Adelman writes plays and short stories. His one act play TARRANT COUNTY received an NPP workshop and was a 2014 Kennedy Center for the Arts College Theatre Festival John Cauble Outstanding Short Play National Finalist and his full length play PONTIACS was the 2015 recipient of the Kennedy Center for the Arts College Theatre Festival Mark Twain Award. Recently, his play ONLY GOOD THINGS HAPPEN AT THE FAIR was a finalist for the 2016 Kernodle Prize and his one woman play, I, CUSTER, directed by Mark Medoff, received a workshop production in Las Cruces, New Mexico, where he currently lives and works
Marissa Bond is a regular on the theatre stages in Las Cruces. Some of her recent performances include No Strings Theatre Company’s MAD GRAVITY, the 2015 Mark Medoff Directorial Project, RECREATIONAL LIVING, and Muffin Mix Productions short film, PERFECT.
Join us, and enjoy the shows!
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Southwest Word Fiesta™ or its steering committee.
We respectfully acknowledge that the entirety of southwestern New Mexico is the traditional territory, since time immemorial, of the Chis-Nde, also known as the people of the Chiricahua Apache Nation. The Chiricahua Apache Nation is recognized as a sovereign Native Nation by the United States in the Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Friendship of 1 July 1852 (10 Stat. 979) (Treaty of Santa Fe ratified 23 March 1853 and proclaimed by President Franklin Pierce 25 March 1853).
Mimbres Press of Western New Mexico University is a traditional academic press that welcomes agented and unagented submissions in the following genres: literary fiction, creative non-fiction, essays, memoir, poetry, children’s books, historical fiction, and academic books. We are particularly interested in academic work and commercial work with a strong social message, including but not limited to works of history, reportage, biography, anthropology, culture, human rights, and the natural world. We will also consider selective works of national and global significance.
“Blatant Attempts at Understanding” by Melanie Zipin
“I, Custer” written by Neal Adelman
