I currently live in Valdez, Alaska, where I coordinate the Last Frontier Theatre Conference. It's a pretty keen job… the majority of my work involves corresponding with playwrights and other theatre folk from Alaska and around the country, and facilitating getting them to Valdez to participate in this amazing event.

I've been attending the Conference since 1995, its third year, and the first year of the Play Lab. I was a student at UAA at the time, and had written my first couple of plays. The Lab was only open to Alaskan playwrights, and in the end six people presented plays there.

It was there that I met the most inspiring mentor I've had (no insult to the others intended), Michael Warren Powell.

Chatting with Michael (in orange) after a reading of The Making of Eye Contact.

Michael was on the responding panel, which also included Jack Davidson, William Hoffman, and Catherine Stadem. My dear friend and longtime collaborator Schatzie had fully staged my play, Sand & Granite On Liberty, which was pretty aggressive for what was supposed to be a reading. We got a little light slap on the wrist, but we also got a lot of kudos for putting on a fun show. Michael and I became friends, as he did with many of the participants, because of his warm, giving nature. I'm a member of his company in NY, Circle East, though I don't get to be very involved, as a regular commute from Valdez to New York would kill me!

Michael surrounded by his usual smokey haze with Van Horn Ely.

In 2007, we presented Michael with the first Jerry Harper Service Award. It’s intended to honor people who have been instrumental in the life of the event, and there was no one else who I could have conceived of giving this first award to. When we were looking at each other as I gave the award… one of the top five moments of my life. It's become a great part of the week, honoring people who've given a lot of themselves for others... Erma, Ron, Jim, Shane... great people, one and all, and great to get the sun shining directly on them.

Michael smiling as he receives the Jerry Harper Service Award.

The Conference is an amazing experience. First off, Valdez is the most beautiful place I've ever been.

Mineral Creek, a lovely hike (Click for a better view!)

A reception on the final day of the 2003 Theatre Conference.

Second, there were all these professionals treating me as a peer. It marked a turning point in how I perceived myself. It also exposed me to a level of articulate thought on the subject of playwriting that I hadn't experienced before. The number of amazing people I've come in contact with since 1995 is staggering, including not only the featured panelists, but also the hundreds of talented writers who've presented their work in the Lab.

The cast of the play Heroes

Reading in John Couglin’s Side Show Soul with my San Francisco pal Colin Hussey.

I attended the next seven Conferences as a playwright and actor. Got to meet and learn from people like Arthur Miller and August Wilson and John Guare… actually got to punch Guare in the stomach all day while working with him and John Heard and good friends on a reading of his very fun play New York Actor.

John directed me to “make love to him” on this speech… so I did my best to get close…

In my eighth year, I ended up getting drafted to be a responding panelist. Evidently it went well, as they asked me to come back and coordinate the Play Lab in 2003. I hadn't been here two weeks before my former boss, Jody McDowell, was insisting that I move to Valdez to work on the Conference year-round. I at first said no, but the opinion that I should take this job is the only thing my biological parents have agreed on in years, so… I live in Valdez now.

In addition to the running the Conference, I also head up the college's theatre department, and do various and sundry little jobs for the college.

Every year there are amazing teachers, amazing participants, and great support from the town and benefactors. I get questions about the transition when the Conference founders left the party. It was quite the experience, with a lot of truly unique challenges. There's solid analysis and reporting in these articles from the Anchorage Daily News: (all of which require Adobe Acrobat Reader. You can download it for free here):

If you’re a playwright, contact me to get on the mailing list and we'll send you our submission guidelines yearly. Many of the most important collaborators and best friends I've made are people I met here at this Conference. Friends like Aoise Stratford and Alan Goy. Here're a few more photos of some great people in an amazing place.