New Rosebud festival celebrates emerging playwrights

Laureen F. Guenther
Times Contributor

 

Rosebud School of the Arts will host the first Bloomin’ Playwrights Festival, Jan. 23-24, in Rosebud’s Akokiniskway Gallery, featuring dramatic readings of plays by two advanced students of the school’s playwriting course.
Leah Herne, a RSA instructor and Rosebud resident, wrote a play about Lola, a woman on life support after falling asleep at the wheel of her car. Loved ones gather around, unaware Lola can hear every word they say. Asleep at the Wheel will be read Jan. 23.
Laird Salkeld, from Calgary, wrote Sorry Now and Then, about the fragile reconciliation between two brothers. One brother says he’s sorry – but it might not last. Salkeld’s play will be read Jan. 24.
This new festival grew from the Budding Playwrights Festival, which Rosebud School of the Arts hosts each spring. The Budding event presents full readings of the one-act plays by students in the beginners’ level, but only partial readings of the full-length plays by students in the advanced class.
After last year’s Budding festival, when Rosebud resident Norma Roth heard those partial plays read, she decided she wanted to hear more.
“Laird’s play particularly, I wanted to hear what happened,” she said. “I thought, ‘I’ve just got to know what’s going on.'”
When she asked Salkeld, “Do you think you could have it done for winter and we could see it?” he said he’d also wanted to see other full plays read. They asked Herne if her play could be ready too, and suddenly Roth had even more than she’d hoped for.
“I wasn’t really thinking let’s do a festival,” she said, “but two nights makes it a festival.”
These plays have special interest for us in southern Alberta, she said, because they’re written by people who live near us, and are about people like us. And these stories might change us, in big or small ways.
Bloomin’ Playwrights Festival will be held in Rosebud’s Akokiniskway Gallery, Saturday, Jan. 23 and Sunday, Jan. 24 at 7 p.m. Admission is free. See the Bloomin’ Arts Festival or Rosebud School of the Arts Facebook pages for more information.