On July 1, 2014, Cary Playwrights’ Forum will bring to a close, another year of creative collaboration between writers, actors, directors, producers and those who support our work – the 2013-2014 CPF Board of Directors – Lydia Sbityakov, Fred Yaffe, Heather Boggs, Jason Tyne-Zimmerman, Mary Beth Hollmann, Thom Haynes, Abbie Adams-Yaffe, Steve Gallagher and other special volunteers – Phil Lewis and Kurt Benrud, the Town of Cary, the Cary Arts Center, and the many volunteers who helped us to bring the words of our writers to life.
We started off last summer on August 3rd with a presentation of a special summer showcase of short plays in the Marcus Dry Room at the Cary Arts Center. These plays were developed thru our playwriting workshop taught by Jesse Lowe, with assistance from Sonia Usatch-Kuhn, at Carolina Preserve, an active adult community, to assist the development of new playwrights in our community. The playwriting workshop was made possible, in part, thanks to a grant awarded to us from the Town of Cary Lazy Daze Festival Committee.
Also in August 2013, we had a wild and fun booth at the 37th Lazy Daze Arts & Crafts Festival in Downtown Cary. Our many volunteers assisted our “new playwright” visitors with the writing of a “Play in a Day” script compiled of their inspirations that day. This script was then developed into a staged reading which was included in our October Staged Reading production at the Cary Arts Center. Thank you to all who volunteered at our booth – Jason Tyne-Zimmerman, Thom Haynes, Jesse Lowe, Mary Beth Hollmann, Linda Depo, Fred Yaffe, Abbie Adams-Yaffe, Lydia Sbityakov, and to Heather Boggs, for organizing this event for us.
In October, we produced our Fall 2013 Staged Reading, “Close Encounters: Tales of Space, Ghosts & Blood!” to sold out audiences on October 11th and 12th in the Paul Cooper Room at the Cary Arts Center. Thanks, Jason Tyne-Zimmerman, for producing this show.
To kick off the start of 2014, we held our first “24 Hour Play Festival” at NRACT (North Raleigh Arts and Creative Theatre) on January 25th. Six Playwrights! Six Directors! And only 24 hours to create six new plays for 21 actors! Wine and refreshments were provided by Whole Foods of Cary. Thanks to Rebecca Tyne- Zimmerman for getting the goodies to the theatre! Thanks to Jason Tyne-Zimmerman for organizing this fun event for us! And thanks to Kirk Ridge and Friends Band for performing original music during the show!
On February 1, 2014, Cary Playwrights’ Forum, in conjunction with the Town of Cary, sponsored a special playwrighting workshop with Mark Harvey Levine in association with the Cary Players production of An Evening of Possibilities by Mark Harvey Levine. During this four-hour workshop, each participant’s submitted short plays which were discussed and writers received feedback from Mr. Levine, a master of the short play form.
On April 26th we had an energetic booth at the Town of Cary 21st Annual Spring Daze Arts and Craft Festival at Bond Park in Cary. Thanks to our volunteers that day…Ken Walsh, Mary Beth Hollmann, Heather Boggs and Lydia Sbityakov!
In May, we held our Spring 2014 Staged Reading of New Works by eleven local playwrights. We had so many wonderful submissions that we are held two nights of staged readings…each night with different plays on the 16th and 17th of May in the Paul Cooper Room at the Cary Arts Center. Thanks to Lydia Sbityakov and Fred Yaffe for producing this show and to Kurt Benrud for being the MC!
Throughout the year, the BOD continued to work on improving and building out the Cary Playwrights’ Forum organization in order to better serve our playwrights. Committees met to revise the by-laws into a clearer, more concise tool for the organization; BOD meetings were moved to 6 pm, right before our playwright meetings on the third Wednesday of each month; and Cary Playwrights’ Forum is now at 501(c)(3) non-profit, which means your donations may now be tax deductible as allowed by law!
A Flickr page was added to our social media for posting our photos, and our publicity team expanded with Thom Haynes managing our Facebook posts and Jason Tyne-Zimmerman focusing on tweeting out to our followers. Abbie Adams-Yaffe will be stepping off the Board in July after two years of managing the organizations publicity needs. Thom Haynes will be taking over as Webmaster of our CPF website and chairing our publicity team in 2014-2015, with Jason Tyne-Zimmerman continuing with our Tweeter feed, and Mary Beth Hollmann publishing our newsletter and managing our local media publicity.
Our playwrights meet every month on the third Wednesday of each month at 7:00 pm in the conference room at the Cary Arts Center. All are welcome to attend. If you have questions regarding our meetings, please feel free to contact either Lydia Sbityakov or Phil Lewis.
And, if you want to get involved with our Board activities or other volunteer activities, please let us know. You can contact Lydia with any questions or check out our website, Facebook page or Twitter feed. for more info and to fill out an application to volunteer. We would love to have you join us as we get ready for another journey into the magical world of theatre!