Valhalla Tahoe has announced the winners of the annual WordWave competition. This year more than 80 playwrights submitted original 1-act plays to the competition. Local judges spent the summer reading the plays and the three winners were notified and announced on the Valhalla’s website this week.
“The Club” written by Pamela Weiler Grayson tells the story of a formerly successful, middle-aged white playwright who writes a new play about a Syrian refugee family’s Thanksgiving, that becomes an absurdist, farcical look at diversity. Through dark comedy, this play digs into the difficult issues of whose stories should be told and who gets to tell them.
Steven Simoncic’s “Jason and Elvis” finds a twelve year-old boy and his imaginary friend, who happens to be Elvis, navigating a coming of age moment.
“The Mantis Dialogue” written by Marcus McGee delves into the what could happen when a man stranded without technology asks a stranger for help…if only he’d seen anyone else out there in the dark before finding this bus stop. The stranger seems harmless, even gives change to passing vagrants. But does that really mean he isn’t a thief or a bi-polar serial killer? “The Mantis Dialogue” explores chance encounters and the enlightenment they can bring.
While Valhalla Tahoe wasn’t able to hold the WordWave event with play readings and author Q&As in Boathouse this year, Valhalla’s board of directors is hoping to showcase them in 2021.
WordWave is dedicated to helping preserve the tradition of story telling. Every culture uses story to entertain, educate, preserve history and tradition and to connect. The underlying principal of WrodWave is that stories - in song, theatre, oral tradition and books - change lives. WordWave provides a venue for locals and visitors alike to share their stories and validate their creativity while preserving the stories of this remarkable time in history.
