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Playwright stirs excitement for Cedar Creek Lake
By Pearl Cantrell
Monitor Staff Writer
CEDAR CREEK LAKE-He’s back.
Local resident and playwright Forrest Attaway is back in the lake area,
having returned from a five-year sojourn in Alaska, where he’s been busy
writing and producing his original one-act plays.
The 1992 Mabank High School graduate and class president says he is
still finding his voice, though he has written some 50 short one-act
plays and 10 full-length plays.
“I’m always writing – working on one piece or another,” he said.
Though his work reflects the many places he has known on his travels and
the people he has met along the way, for the most part he writes about
life in East Texas, he told The Monitor.
While on a four-month sabbatical to reconnect with “his roots,”
Henderson County Performing Arts Center executive director Dennis
Gilmore offered him a job, as the center’s educational director and to
oversee its marketing efforts.
“I had been gone so long, I was afraid I was losing my authenticity,” he
said.
Well that’s for his audiences to decide.
Three of his pieces are being featured during the center’s Black Box
season, with performances set for April 7-9.
The contemporary series of performances are meant for mature audiences
and attempts to portray modern-day issues and adult situations.
The first two one-acts are 10 - 20 minutes long.
The first, “Razorback,” is seldom seen in its entirety, as sections are
portrayed as a “calling card,” Attaway said, to introduce his work to
theatre critics and professionals.
Attaway has been selected to present his “calling card–Razorback” at the
First Annual Great Plains Theatre Conference in Omaha, Neb. in May,
hosted by the only three-time Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, Edward
Albee.
It is being produced in its entirety for the HCPAC special performance.
He describes “Razorback” as a bit “disjointed and dark.” He believes in
trying new things, though he admits his cynical tone doesn’t really
change that much from piece to piece.
The next short, is called “Outta Beer, Outta Space,” a.k.a. “Jeb and
Earl’s Galactic Adventure,” a very funny slapstick comedy about “two
good ‘ole boys who get abducted by aliens on their way to buy beer,” he
described.
Winner of the Northwest Drama Conference Award for Comedy, this one-act
has been well received every place it has played.
Attaway is hoping for a similar response here.
The third one-act is brand new and runs for about 45 minutes, following
the intermission.
Attaway describes his newest production as a sentimental piece about
unfinished business, when a dead man’s ex-wife and the mother of his
children meets his young girlfriend at the graveside.
“It’s a woman’s show,” he said.
Two fine actresses have been cast in the roles.
LaDonna Davis, who first won notoriety as the backbone for the Eustace
High School drama department and then as the director of the Trinity
Valley Community College drama program, plays the ex-wife.
A relatively young actress, Amber Broughton, who has played in several
HCPAC musicals, plays the younger other woman.
“It’s by far the most sentimental of the three,” Attaway said.
He is hoping for good things to come of the upcoming Omaha conference,
where Albee, along with other noted theater luminaries such as
playwright Arthur Kopit, actress Patricia Neal and director Lloyd
Richards, will critique Attaway’s “Razorback,” during the Memorial Day
weekend conference.
“It (the conference) gives me (as a playwright) greater exposure to the
national theatre community,” he said.
With one eye on his career, Attaway is also very excited about
developing more theater opportunities for residents of the Cedar Creek
Lake area, he said.
“I believe the lake area is ripe for live theatre and cultural growth,”
he said.
Gilmore is giving him full rein to develop this vision.
A round of winter acting classes he presented at The Library at Cedar
Creek Lake has recently finished, with plans for a summer session in the
works.
He hopes to bring a few simple productions to the library for local
audiences and participation.
Library director Marc Machand supports this idea 100 percent. “It would
be phenomenal,” he told The Monitor.
Machand had spoken about getting a small theater group active here at
the library several years ago.
“The most important thing is to expose people to theater who may have
never experienced it before,” he said.
In connection with this effort, the Henderson County Performing Arts
Center has named The Library at Cedar Creek Lake a co-beneficiary in its
annual fund-raiser.
For every $35 ticket purchased by someone mentioning the library, $5
goes to the library, Attaway explained.
Table sponsorships by those mentioning the library also guarantee a
portion of the cost gets allocated to the library.
This year’s dinner-theater event is set for Friday, April 21 at the Cain
Center in Athens with cocktails at 6:30 p.m. and a 7:30 p.m. performance
of “The Andrew Brothers,” a comedy spoof. |