Duane Kelly

Duane Kelly

BIO
DUANE KELLY, PLAYWRIGHT
www.duanekelly.net

2018 Working on a new play about assisted reproduction technology and another one about Hildegard of Bingen

WRITING
2018 Completed "Visiting Cezanne", a new play about Paul Cezanne

2016 Completed "Das Ende", a full-length play about Richard Wagner and his Ring opera cycle...
BIO
DUANE KELLY, PLAYWRIGHT
www.duanekelly.net

2018 Working on a new play about assisted reproduction technology and another one about Hildegard of Bingen

WRITING
2018 Completed "Visiting Cezanne", a new play about Paul Cezanne

2016 Completed "Das Ende", a full-length play about Richard Wagner and his Ring opera cycle.

2014 Completed "Escorting Tom", a full-length marital drama.

2011 Reconceived and rewrote "Rousseau and Hobbes", a play about the 1994 Rwandan genocide and primate field research first written in 1998. Had a public reading at ACT Theatre, Seattle.

2011 "Future Imperfect" was a finalist for 2011 Ashland New Plays Festival, Ashland, OR. 4 plays were chosen from 10 finalists, selected from 200 submissions.

2010 Launched "Lapis Loquens", a theatre-oriented blog which I continue to write and publish weekly. www.duanekelly.net

2010 Travelled to Rwanda and Uganda for two weeks of research as preparation for rewriting Rousseau and Hobbes.

2010 Completed "Future Imperfect", a full-length comedy about a family trying to unite after the mother’s death. Had public readings at id Theater (NY) Sept. 20 and at ACT Theatre (Seattle) June 17.

2010 "A Dying Wish" was a semifinalist for 2010 NAAA Double X Play Reading Festival, London, England. 400 scripts were submitted.

2010 "The Thing With Feathers" was a finalist for 2010 Ashland New Plays Festival, Ashland, OR. 4 plays were chosen from 10 finalists, selected from 200 submissions.

2010 "The Thing With Feathers" was a semifinalist selection for 2010 FutureFest new play festival, Dayton, OH. 6 plays were chosen from 12 semifinalists, selected from 390 submissions.

2010 "A Dying Wish" had a reading Feb. 15 at id Theater’s Sit In! reading series in New York

2009 "The Thing With Feathers" had a reading Nov. 11 at Lark Play Development Center in New York

2009 "The Thing With Feathers" was one of six plays developed at Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, June 8-21, in Idaho.

2009 "The Thing With Feathers" was a semifinalist selection for 2009 Bay Area Playwrights Festival.

2007 Completed "The Thing With Feathers", a full-length play about a Vietnam War vet fighting to save his failing coffee farm in Costa Rica.

2005 Wrote short story, "Pochta".

2003 Completed play "A Dying Wish", a full-length family drama.

2001 "Rousseau and Hobbes", as a result of a juried selection process, received a staged reading at the Last Frontier Theatre Conference with Edward Albee, in Alaska.

2001 "Rousseau and Hobbes", as a result of a juried selection process, received a staged reading at Ensemble Studio Theatre, New York. Reading was part of that theatre’s First Light Festival.

1999 Completed "Rousseau and Hobbes", a full-length play about genocide and primate research in Africa.

SERVICE
July 2015
Participated in the Dramatists Guild national conference in Chicago, including moderating panel on musicals developed at La Jolla Playhouse. Panelists Stephen Schwartz, Doug Wright, Amanda Green, Bobbie and Kristen Lopez, Christopher Ashley.

August 2013
Participated in the Dramatists Guild national conference in Chicago, including being interlocutor for discussion with David Ives about his playwriting career and the creation of Venus in Fur.

June 2011
Participated in the Dramatists Guild national conference in Virginia, including being interlocutor for discussion with Todd London (then Artistic Director of New Dramatists).

December 2009-present
Dramatists Guild regional representative for state of Washington

STAGE PRODUCTION
2003 Produced Equity production of Betrothal, written by Lanford Wilson

MEMBERSHIPS
Dramatists Guild
Theatre Puget Sound

BUSINESS CAREER
1988-2009
Founder and Chairman of Salmon Bay Events, a company that produced Northwest Flower & Garden Show and San Francisco Flower & Garden Show. Sold shows 2009 in order to focus more on writing.

CIVIC ACTIVITIES
2001-2006
Member of Board of Trustees, San Francisco Botanical Garden Society, a non-profit organization supporting San Francisco Botanical Garden (in Golden Gate Park).
Chaired Strategic Directions Committee.

2001-2002
Member of Board of Directors, American Horticultural Society (Alexandria, Virginia)

1991-1998
Member of Board of Directors, The Arboretum Foundation, a non-profit organization supporting Washington Park Arboretum, a 200-acre arboretum in Seattle; chaired various committees including Long-Range Planning Committee. Served as Foundation President 1993-1995.

EDUCATION
University of Washington, B.A. – English Literature, 1973

Plays

  • Visiting Cezanne
    Unknown artist Nora Baker visits the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2016. From New York she travels to an artist’s studio in southern France in 1900. Nora desperately wants to get back to 2016 but Paul Cezanne, another obscure artist with his own problems, is not being helpful. Also ensnared in Nora’s crisis are Cezanne’s gardener and an art historian from Utah.
  • Das Ende
    In order to remove a curse on her family, a woman attempts to return a stolen manuscript at the same time that its dead author seeks it. The author is composer Richard Wagner, intent on safeguarding his legacy.
  • Escorting Tom
    Carol will be leaving her inept and isolated husband. Before she goes she wants to improve him so that life will not crush him in her absence. This improvement project goes off the rails.
  • Future Imperfect
    After Momma’s death, separation has turned into disintegration for Theo’s family. Can they find a way to reunite as they converge in Italy to scatter Momma’s ashes? Only if they first tame a tyrannical housekeeper, disarm an Italian policeman and avoid arrest for pornography. Their future hangs in the balance.
  • A Dying Wish
    A woman on her deathbed with ovarian cancer, wishing to ensure the future wellbeing of her husband and teenage daughter, issues instructions – including whom her husband is to remarry. Despite the unwanted arrival of a long-estranged sister and a lack of cooperation from her husband and daughter, the family experiences healing.

    CHARACTERS
    IRIS, 48, dying of ovarian cancer
    LEW, 49,...
    A woman on her deathbed with ovarian cancer, wishing to ensure the future wellbeing of her husband and teenage daughter, issues instructions – including whom her husband is to remarry. Despite the unwanted arrival of a long-estranged sister and a lack of cooperation from her husband and daughter, the family experiences healing.

    CHARACTERS
    IRIS, 48, dying of ovarian cancer
    LEW, 49, her husband
    MEG, 17, their daughter (at rebellious stage)
    DIDGE, 46, neighbor (good-hearted, scatterbrained)
    FRAN, 37, Iris’s sister

    TIME
    Mid-August 2002

    PLACE
    A large living room of a comfortable middle-class house in Seattle. A hospital bed has been temporarily set up, positioned for a view to the garden. Strung above the bed are festive letters spelling “WELCOME HOME MOM.” Miscellaneous living room furniture and a wheelchair. A full 3-ring Notebook with page dividers is visible. This Notebook remains visible throughout play. Only other set is one scene on a train station bench.
  • The Thing with Feathers
    SYNOPSIS AND CHARACTERS FOR
    THE THING WITH FEATHERS

    a full-length play by Duane Kelly


    An expat American and Vietnam War veteran, Harry Howell, owns and operates a coffee farm in Costa Rica. In the year 2000 plummeting coffee prices are endangering many farms, including Harry’s. His mental condition has declined as this business crisis has deepened. Amidst these...
    SYNOPSIS AND CHARACTERS FOR
    THE THING WITH FEATHERS

    a full-length play by Duane Kelly


    An expat American and Vietnam War veteran, Harry Howell, owns and operates a coffee farm in Costa Rica. In the year 2000 plummeting coffee prices are endangering many farms, including Harry’s. His mental condition has declined as this business crisis has deepened. Amidst these struggles, Harry is visited by a ghost from Vietnam and a business student from America, both bringing with them chapters from his past.


    There is one set. Cast size is six (three male, three female), not counting a verbose parrot named Rimbaud who recites poetry. War and its costs are a concern of the play.


    CHARACTERS

    • HARRY HOWELL, 53, expat American; has one below-the-knee prosthetic leg; smokes cigarettes
    • LOAN, Vietnamese, adult, age indeterminate (pronounced low-awn with accent on awn; Loan means phoenix in Vietnamese)
    • JAVIER, 17, Harry’s adopted son
    • DORA, 37, Costa Rican, farm’s bookkeeper and Harry’s common-law wife
    • CLARE, 31, American
    • CARLOS, 40s, Costa Rican coffee farmer
    • RIMBAUD, parrot with large vocabulary (name spoken with French pronunciation - ram-bow with the accent on bow; however the echo of Rambo, the Stallone movie character, is intentional)

    TIME

    December 2000

    PLACE

    A large well-worn office on a mid-sized coffee farm in the central valley of Costa Rica. Office is within the residence of the farm’s owner/manager. Essentials are window with a view onto the farm, desk with drawers, couch large enough for sleeping, TV, cupboard containing liquor, file cabinets, globe that spins. Desk top is in disarray with piles of files and paper. Books are about. There could be a veranda opening off the office. A largish bird cage contains Rimbaud, a verbose parrot.