PENULTIMATE NIGHT

Nancy Gall-Clayton joined us tonight, having driven up today from Louisville. And we said farewell to Kathy Coudle King, who left this evening, and are saying goodbye to Geralyn Horton, Vicki Cheatwood, and Diane Rao, all three of whom depart tomorrow. Geralyn tells us that all the playwrights recorded long enough for her podcast that two of them will use material recorded here--one devoted to the retreat, another to the trials, joys, excitement, challenges (and fill in whatever you want to add!) of being a woman playwright in North America in the first part of the twenty-first century. So watch/listen for them at http://glhorton.podomatic.com/ (the current podcast has Geralyn talking about coming to Columbus, recorded before her departure for this year's retreat--should be interesting to compare her before and during podcasts, not to mention an afterwards, should she do one!


The scoreboard of The Ohio Stadium looms in the distance to the northeast of the Drake Performance and Event Center, center indeed to the creativity of ICWP writers this week, even as the OSU campus is chock-a-block with high school sports and cheerleading camps.


no computer lab for Mrinalini Kamath! She prefers to plug in her laptop in the hallway of the Drake, with large rivers overlooking the Olentangy River. And those who've been here for various ICWP events will note the new carpet, installed last winter!


scripts in hand, Cynthia Wands, Kyle Jepson, and Jessica Studer read a new scene from Kathy Coudle King's Campanieras--the piece about the dirty war in Uruguay that grows more chilling each night. Volunteer actors Kal Poole and Joe Cofer look on approvingly.


Veteran Columbus actors Irene Braverman and Gloria Kraus are part of the grannies in the next scene from Geralyn Horton's Against the Dying of the Light. It's been terrific watching the play grow, day by day, over the past five days.


Cheryl Connor, Vicki Cheatwood, and Emily Davis enjoy the reading of Emily's inventive short piece about cows who are roommates, as they prepare to go to work at the milking posts--brushing their hair, sharing secrets, etc.-- Girl Talk

We also heard more from Diane Rao's piece about the world boggle champ, Amy Lynne Holland's very funny Apoca-Lola, about a secretary in Hell who becomes one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and Cynthia Wands' play that started out to be about Will Shakespeare's lost years, but is now turning into something entirely different, much to her surprise. And the delight of those of us looking on, watching the process of change and growth in all these plays.