By Cheril Lee
Omaha, NE – Metropolitan Community College's Fort Omaha campus is the site of The Great Plains Theatre Conference May 28th through June 4th.
Producing Artistic Director Kevin Lawler says the purpose of this national theatre conference is to develop new plays and celebrate master playwrights in America. He says the conference put out a call last fall for plays and about 400 scripts were received. Lawler says professional playwrights were hired to read through the scripts and rate them. The GPTC staff then picked the top 35 scripts. Those playwrights will come to Omaha for staged readings of their work, "Then the directors we hire gather their casts and get together and rehearse. And they start dialogue with the playwright. Then they rehearse a number of times before the playwright gets here and then when the playwright gets here they rehearse with them. Then there's a public reading and they get feedback from these great artists."
Lawler says acclaimed playwright Lee Blessing will serve as the conference honoree. In addition to the staged readings, there will be a MainStage series as well as several PlayLabs. For a complete list of conference events, the web site is www.mccneb.edu/theatreconference.