Congratulations to Aleks Merilo and Emily Golden!
In Exit 27, Portland playwright Aleks Merilo tells a riveting story of survival. Since the year 2000, the citizens of one town have abandoned nearly 1,400 boys in the Utah desert to reduce the competition for wives in their polygamist community. These young men are called “The Lost Boys of Utah” and Exit 27 is imagined from Aleks’ actual interviews with these true teenage outcasts.
With an MFA in Playwriting from UCLA, Aleks’ plays have been produced in numerous theaters across the country as well as off-off-Broadway. His Blur in the Rear View won the James Rogers Playwriting Contest in Lexington, KY and will be produced by North Carolina’s Fly-By-Night Theater in March of 2013.
Our inaugural student winner is Emily Golden, a current senior majoring in English and Theater at Willamette University. Her play, The Candlestick Maker, is a story about trust, memory and, above all, greed. It explores the relationship between an acclaimed but aging author and the young student to whom her life is irrevocably bound.
Emily has seen her plays produced by theaters in Colorado and Washington while her short play, Machine Gun Kathryn, was published by Heuer Publishing.
Exit 27
Sunday, January 27th at 6:30pm
Saturday, February 2nd at 1pm
The Candlestick Maker
Sunday, January 27th at 4:30pm
Saturday, February 2nd at 11am
Both readings will be directed by Debbie Lamedman
