Trip to Valdez, Alaska

Well, what a week in Valdez! I was pretty darn busy the whole time, so even though I thought about adding more entries to my blog, I never quite got fingers to keyboard. But it was so much fun!

For those who are not aware, there is a playwriting conference that happens in Valdez, Alaska, every year in June called the Last Frontier Theater Conference. In fact, this year was the 14th annual conference, which is just amazing. The conference has a play lab, where playwrights from all over the world can submit plays to be work-shopped at the conference. The playwrights who have a work selected are able to have a reading of their play at the conference, where there is a panel of experts and an audience that can give them feedback. It’s a great opportunity for playwrights to hear their work read out loud and to get some very good critiques of how their work plays out. It’s a chance to see if they are getting their desired effect from the audience and such. And also just to hear how dialog sounds coming out of an actor’s mouth.

So not only do they have playwrights there, but they need actors to read the plays—which is where I come in! Well, me and a bunch of other people :) I think this was my fourth time attending the conference, and I really love it. I always travel down with a group of friends, and we’re able to camp out in a classroom down at the college. And I get to hear all sorts of new plays and read in some as well. I’ve also had the pleasure of performing two years now at the conference. One of my very first postings to this blog had pictures from the shows I did at the conference last year, if you want to check those out. This year I got to perform in another evening of one-acts that TBA Theater brought down to the conference. They also did a set of overnighters, where plays are written, rehearsed, and performed, all within 24 hours that I performed in. It’s awesome, and I’ll have postings with pictures from both of those evenings separately from this.

Valdez, Alaska, is about a 6-hour drive from Anchorage, and it is one of the most beautiful drives you can make in the state. There are mountains galore, and you even go through a pass that still sometimes has snow, since the elevation is so high. I’m including some photos here of the drive, and if you want to see more, you can click here for a photo album of the rest of the shots I have from the drive. We caravanned with 5 cars, and we had a blast, as is usual :) Much of the trip is spent oohing and ahhing over sites along the way, including many a glacier, and the rest is spent being goofy and making each other laugh, as is supposed to happen on road trips. So enjoy the photos!