Alaskan playwrights present 10-minute works at Hap Ryder Riverfront Theatre

FAIRBANKS, Alaska (KTVF) - Aspiring writers from Fairbanks and all around Alaska are about to show their work to the public with the help of a local theater group.

The Hap Ryder Riverfront Theatre is hosting a series of short plays written by Alaskan authors.The event, called the 8 by 10 Festival of New Alaskan Plays, is in its 21st year. It involves staged readings of 8 plays that run about 10 minutes each.

Looking Glass Theatre Group puts on the event, calling for submissions from around the state each year.

Prospects have come from communities across the state, including Valdez, Anchorage, and some from villages.

This year, a record 28 plays were received, according to Anne Hanley, Founder of the Looking Glass Theatre Group. “We definitely all wanted only Alaskan playwrights because we just feel like we have a whole different sensibility up here that other fellow Alaskans get, may not get so well in the lower 48,” Hanley said.

“Writing a ten-minute play is a really good introductory exercise for beginning writers, because you have to have everything you need in a full length play. You have to have a beginning, a middle and an end, you have to have character arcs, you have to have conflict,” she added.

Once the plays are submitted each work is read by a group of judges with the writer’s name withheld.8 winners are therefore selected anonymously.

The chosen plays are given a staged reading on a bare-bones set.

At the performance, each audience member is given a card with the opportunity to provide feedback to the writer.

Many playwrights in Fairbanks have seen their work featured multiple years.

Earl Peterson, author of this year’s “Not Another Alaska TV Show,” is excited to watch his play performed live.

According to the playwright, it’s exhilarating to watch one’s own work produced, and Alaska provides inspiration for his writing. “There’s just so many curious, odd, wonderful, just different things about being in Alaska that just set life in Alaska apart from everywhere else I’ve lived, especially the lower 48, that you can always find things about Alaska, again, those little quirks in how Alaskans do things differently.”

The festival is happening on Friday and Saturday, April 28 and 29, at the Hap Ryder Riverfront Theatre in Fairbanks.

Submissions are generally asked for in January, and can be submitted online or in-person.

More information can be found here.

Copyright 2023 KTVF. All rights reserved.